CAMERA! LIGHTS! ACTION Disouraged by bureaucratic hurdles over the years, Hollywood filmmakers protested by going south but they are now back to make movies based on Kenya's recent history. The last of JK Rowling's seven Harry Potter creations will premier in 2011 to conclude a very successful movie series. Rowling is the British author of the seven books on which the Harry Pot¬ter films are based, and Daniel Radcliffe, the hero of the series since its inauguration in 2000, is repositioning himself for other movie roles as Harry Potter nears the end, which is how Kenya's troubled movie industry appears in the picture.

Late last year, Radcliffe earned a coveted lead role in a true story movie, Journey, to be shot in Kenya this year if the time plan is adhered to. Journey is a biopic about the enterprising life of photojournalist Dan Eldon who was killed in Somalia in 1993.He had been sent there from the Nairobi' bureau to cover the worsening conflict and the entry of the US the 22 year 0ld Eldon, fellow Reuters Photojournalist the affa¬ble Hos Maina; Anthony Macharia and ustrianPhotographer Hansi Kraus were cornered by an angry mob while covering the bombing of warlord Mohammed Aideed's headquarters in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. They were clobbered to death. Eldon left behind some journals that tell alot about his life. Soon or later Hollywood was bound to have ideas which is how A-list actors, such as Julia Roberts, got interested in the young hero's story.

When word went out that film producer and journalist Kathy (Eldon's mother) was making a movie about her son, a number of Hollywood's actors expressed interest in playing his role. Academy Award nominee, Heath Ledger, for example, Ledger died in January this year in unexplained circumstance in his apartment, but that was after Radcliff had already got the job.

Radcliffe is thus expected to act as 22- year old Eldon in 'Journey' which will be shot in Kenya and partly in the UK, hopefully by the end of the year if his other commitments with the second last Harry Potter sequel, expected to be out in November this year does not take all his time.

Sending out the right signals

This is very-good news for Kenya Film Commission. "It sends out the right signals," says the commission's CEO, David Maingi. Maingi's energies seem to have hit peak levels after attending the annual international Film Locations trade fair organised by the Association .of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) in Santa Monica, California.
Apart from holding discussions with Journey producer Kathy, bigger things happened at the fair where he was marketing Kenya to the creme de la creme of movie production houses such as Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures. "We had a meeting with nine directors of Universal Pictures and made a presen¬tation about Kenya. We also met with rep¬resentatives from Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures, apart from the many other independent producers," he says. The Santa Monica discussions, accord¬ing Maingi, may result in Kenya being selected as a film location for some four more big Hollywood movies. One of them involves Julia Roberts playing a lead role in a biopic about a retired American mis¬sionary who was killed together with her daughter in January 2007 by carjackers near Naivasha.

A book by creative writer, Mike Resnick, titled Kirinyaga, has also raised some interest in Hollywood, and may be turned into a movie once an executive producer is found.Kirinyaga is a sci-fi about a leader who guides his people to a virgin planet called Kirinyaga, where he tries to recreate a past I culture, devoid of the rigours of an over- crowded and polluted modern Kenya. No specific time frame is out yet about the shooting of the Julia Roberts movie and Kirinyaga, but there is a growing interest in kenya as a location for Hollywood movies, perhaps because of the success posted by the Constant Gardener.

But there has been a hitch which, according to Maingi, has been stopping movie houses from coming into Kenya, preferring instead South Africa. Kenya, unlike many other countries, does not offer any incentives to foreign movie producers, yet that is the name of to the game in the in the industry.

There were two main questions when we made presentations to movie producers. They wanted to know if we had got over our security problems. At the same time Mungiki was on the rampage, so you can imagine the odds that were against us.' Says Maingi who negotiated four projects.

Now Maingi is on a roll hardy six months into the job as CEO of the film commission, and has written down ideas which, he says could change the fortunes of the country's film industry as a big time location destination for foreign producers.Those ideas are in the form of a proposal to the government, to have in place rebates and incentives aimed ad attracting large film and television productions in the country.

Maingi's proposal has been submitted to the treasury for consideration in the coming financial year. The document outlines the details of a 30% tax rebate KFC is proposing for the benefit of large budget films (Kenyan or Foreign), and also provides a set of conditions that the producers must fulfill before being considered. A large budget film, according to the proposal, is one in which the producers must spend not less than sh120 million during production.

Further, at least 50% of the principal shooting must take a minimum of four weeks. Most forms of production will qualify for the proposed rebate if adopted, except reality TV, current affairs programmes, public event productions and training programmes. However, weighed down by bureaucracy over the years, Kenyan movie producers aren't excited.

Albert Wandago, an old timer in the business feels that KFC is spending too much time trying to please foreigners at the expense of local filmmakers. "I don't even want to discuss it," he screams on the other end of the line. "My disagreement with KFC, and my arguments even when I was a commissioner there was that the commission first thinks about foreign producers. If you look at how much they spend here against their total budget, you will real¬ise that it is peanuts. I would say it is just about 10 per cent?'

A lot of the large budget film produc¬ers who have shot films here, according to Wandago, come with their people, and often engage Kenyans as "spanner boys," says Wandago. "They will only engage Kenyans in major roles when they must:' Consequently, Wandago does not see much benefit in KFC's efforts to market Kenya abroad as a movie location. "They should first and foremost pro¬mote us:' he says and decides that he is not going to say more.

David Mulwa, a veteran thespian and lecturer at Kenyatta University, prefers the middle ground. But, he too, feels that local productions are getting a raw deal from the government despite their tremendous impetus, especially video productions. David Mulwa, a veteran thespian and lecturer at Kenyatta University, prefers the middle ground. But, he too, feels that local productions are getting a raw deal from the government despite their tremendous impetus, especially video productions. He however, regrets that the country has maintained ''very rigid" rules, which have led to a number of films that should have been shot here ending up being done in South Africa.

"Michael Douglas starred in the film that should have been shot in Kenya:' regrets Mulwa. According to him, in as much as the' country needs to attract foreign movie producers; KFC must not lose focus on the local players. "We should strive to build our own industry the way Nigeria: has done," says Mulwa.

But Maingi is aware of the discontent. Apart from setting up committees to develop a common understanding among the various film associations, he is coming up with some interesting support schemes for local artists. "This year, I am going to raise Sh50 million, partly from the government and partly from donors, to be used to hold a bi¬annual film event (June and September) that will scrutinize scripts with the aim of selecting five every year for funding from pre-production to marketing," he says.

The "Film development project," as he calls it, will support productions in the categories of "animation and new media, short films, and full feature movies," to the tune of Sh2.5 million, Sh7million and Sh15 million respectively. These will serve as start-up loans to jumpstart "people with talent but who don't have the money." "It will be a revolving fund, and in five to ten years, I see it growing to between Ksh 100 million to Ksh 200 million," Says Maingi. The first selection of film scripts could be this September, and a call for entries may be made in June, according to Maingi.