What an amazing place this is! Its hard to put into words what this experience is like but I’ll try where I can and leave out what I can’t.

Listen, I know there’s plenty of corruption, I know most of the money isn’t being spent in the way that it should be and that there are plenty things that could/should/would be done better, but there’s still something…quelquechose…about being at a totally African film festival in an African country where the original thing started, where a group of artists got together and decided that they wanted to get together and exchange ideas regularly…to share and critique and watch each other’s creations/ideas/thoughts. It’s pretty amazing. The main office corridors are lined with large posters of past winners…a corridor lined with African filmmakers who’ve made excellent works. Imagine that! Images of your own peeps getting accolades…nothing but us getting (and giving each other) accolades for the work that we’re doing. Coming together to create ideas, to talk about stuff, to compare notes and make our stuff better. Now…I’m sure not all of it works that way in actuality but the idea is that at least there’s a space where that could potentially happen.