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Namibia: Local Drama Series to Hit the Screens
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New Era (Windhoek)
25 April 2008
Posted to the web 25 April 2008
Frederick Philander
Windhoek
The first 13 episodes of the country's first television drama series is scheduled to be broadcast on prime time NBC viewing next month, it was announced in a press release this week.
Titled, The Ties That Bind, the 26-part series is produced by Optimedia, a local film company that was short-listed with two other local film companies in the commission system of the NBC some time last year.
A question mark still hangs over the budget for the 26-part series.
Speculation is rife in the film fraternity that the amount allocated to the project can be in the vicinity of N$5 million, bearing in mind that an episode could cost as much as N$200000 at current television production rates in the Southern African region.
The producer and director of the series, Abius Akwaake, in an Art/Life interview earlier this year could not be drawn into divulging the amount of money that was involved and from where the money would come.
Speculation is also rife that the project is a combined project of the NBC, providing the technical equipment and editing, and the Namibian Film Commission (NFC) providing the funding.
It is general knowledge that the NFC has no real financial resources to fund such a huge television project after it spent more than N$20 million from its own budget on the feature film, Namibia: The Liberation Struggle some three years ago.
According to the press release the series, The Ties That Bind, was created in response to a growing need for Namibia to have its own homegrown drama series, reflecting the real life experiences of the average Namibian.
"We are tired of hearing other people's stories. We have our own stories and we would like to share these stories among ourselves and also tell it to the world," said Leonard Witbeen of Blueberry, an events marketing company for the Namibian television series whose head writer is Nigerian, Feme Kayode.
Among the secondary writers are some known and unknown, established and first-time Namibian writers such as Dorinda Pieters, Nailoke Mdhanda, Girley Jazama, Oshosheni Hiveluah and Louis Maruwasa.
The series reportedly has the same concept as the South African Broadcasting Corporation's Generations, a popular series highlighting black culture.
Featured in the television series' 43-member cast are two Committed Artists of Namibia principal stage actors Basil de Walt, last year's best and supporting stage actor, and Felicity Celento, nominated as best supporting actress in the Theatre Zone Competition of the National Theatre of Namibia.
More film news is that less people attended this year's Windhoek International Film Festival than the year before despite that the event was better organised and offered a wider variety of films this time around.
"We are happy with the turn-out, even though festival numbers are slightly lower than last year's. In general the audience participation and feedback was much better and very positive. We had a very successful opening event and an even more spectacular Namibia Film Award Ceremony," said a press release.
According to the release 3800 people attended the film festival.
"The opening night film, 10.000 BC, proved to be the biggest crowd puller for the festival, after about 450 people watched it at the opening, another 300 plus came to watch the film at the Ster Kinekor. Nevertheless, the audience voted for Emma´s Bliss as the most popular international movie, while Journey of the Rain Shaman proved to be the audience favourite Namibian production.
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The Finnish embassy and the Namibian Film Commission were the two main sponsors of the film festival.
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