Facebook-owned company Meta is hosting its second annual Africa Day campaign to promote Africans making a global impact.
South African filmmaker Taryn Crosman, content producer for the film project, said that META identified eight innovators, creators and businessmen on the continent whose stories the company wanted to tell for its “Made by Africa, Loved by the World” campaign.
Crosman’s company, Tia Productions, teamed up with Mashoba Media to find four fellow filmmakers in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His job was to make documentaries of two to three minutes about the subjects.
“So, for example, we did Trevor Sturman here in South Africa,” Crosman said. “He’s a visual artist and his line was, I just loved that, he says: ‘Africa is no longer a ghostwriter.’ We’re telling our own stories and owning our own narratives. That’s the thread between all these characters. They all have that in common.”
Nairobi-based filmmaker Joan Kabangu made a film about Black Rhino VR, a Kenyan virtual reality content producing company that has worked with international brands.
“They are the pioneers in making VR content, 360 content, augmented mixed reality type of content in Kenya in wider Africa. And this is a company that is run by a young person and everyone who works there is quite young. And they’re really looking at how technology is being used to advance the way we’re creating content in 2022,” Kabangu said.
About META’s Africa Day campaign, he said, “I think it’s celebrating the good in Africa.”
In Ghana, the film production of Kofi Awua has been delayed due to floods in the capital Accra. But he is determined to finish. Her innovator is designer Selina Bebb, whose work can be seen on Instagram and sold online, often to buyers in the US and UK.
“She’s very unique,” said Avua. “Depending on the material she uses and even the processes she uses, there are things that tell a Ghanian or African story. For example, she uses a certain type of stone. which you can only find in the northern parts of Ghana.”
Avua said that being a part of the campaign is an opportunity of a lifetime.
“My manager called to tell me we got a contract from Meta and I was almost, like I had a heart attack,” she said. “When that call came, I thought it was time for me to express myself to the millions or billions of people who are using Facebook, who are using social media.”
Meta will also host free virtual training sessions throughout the week. These include training on monetization, cross-border trading and branded content.
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