A group of students from the University of The Gambia’s School of Journalism and Digital Media participated in a five-day intensive advanced film production training organised by Welt Filme, a German non-profitable organisation.
Held at the FIFA Football Hotel in Yundum, the training was centered on script writing, film and documentary production. The training also included university students from other faculties and media practitioners from notable media houses in the country.
“We want to train people in the media fraternity about the different ways to produce a film… This would help them develop ideas and summarize them into great films that would portray the way they want to tell their own stories,” the Founding Director, Frank Domhan said.
He added that Welt Filme aims to intensify the dialogue between the northern and southern world using films, for this purpose, Welt Filme initiates film projects in developing countries and supports the works of local film makers – from script development all through to the post production stage.
“This training is called ‘Make a difference’ and it’s coming with a program called master class for trainers and trainees from Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia – I am really happy with the participants; their passion and enthusiasm to learn new ideas, techniques and other practical aspects,” Rogier Hardeman, the Project Manager said.
He added that the future looks bright for young journalists in the Gambia especially with the school of journalism which is training young people on the ethical and moral obligations of media practitioners.
“The university through the school of journalism should include film production in its curriculum which would have a significant effect on young journalist especially does into investigative journalism,” David Noah, a student said.
The trainees would be put to test on various hands-on practical and would produce short films during course of the training and the stories created in the process would be presented to large audiences via cinema, television, and social media and with traveling film buses, both in the country of origin and in Germany.
Finally, frank said they are looking forward to partnering with the university to initiate a film production in the journalism curriculum which would significantly boost their broadcasting capacities.
