Kwetu film institute together with a delegation from The European Union recently organized the first edition of the European film festival that aimed at promoting the film culture in the country.

Students had a master class training with the help of Martin Widerberg a renowned Swedish film director and actor. Sunday Magazine’s Sharon Kantengwa talked to Eric Kabera, the founder and president of Kwetu Film Institute about the film festival.

How was your experience like working with Martin Widerberg?

Martin Widerberg is the son of the famous Swedish legendary film director Bo Widerberg. Martin came to Rwanda to train our Students about 11 years ago with the support of SIDA and the Swedish Embassy in Kigali. I can say that we have become very successful. With this we hope to have a reunion and get to produce sitcoms of high quality. My relationship with Martin is very good and also one that we hope to continue.

What impact did the European film festival have on the budding film makers?

The impact of the EU film festival that was held in Kigali, Huye and Rubavu was to introduce and consolidate the culture of viewing films and appreciate different cultures from various parts of Europe as the EU office also consolidates its cultural ties with Rwanda.

Most of the students who participated in the workshop are students are in our three months program. We hope to have them continue learning and making films.

What does the film festival seek to accomplish?

We hope that with the European film festival, we can continue to grow the film culture in Rwanda while continuing to train and introduce some of our youth to the trade and culture. Discussions are under way with Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture to continue recording our language as well in line with promoting cross culture collaborations.

What, according to you, can be done to further support the local film industry?

We are eager to get more support from local investors and also strong support from government agencies and this can help change things much faster. Africa needs solid investments in changing the image that has been portrayed for our continent.

The response to this is in all our hands, filmmakers, community leaders, political leaders and business people. It was an honor for the European Mission to have taken the initiative to cooperate with Kwetu to run this well attended film festival. So, we need to train more and also have investment and with all that, the future is indeed very bright. We hope to run the second edition next year.

How can you say Rwanda’s journey in promoting cinematography has been so far?

The film business and TV industry is improving in Rwanda though we still have a long way to go but the quality is improving and once investments are in place things will move even faster.

We hope to involve most of the local talents in the new development of the new feature film we are preparing to produce by next year as we get to promote the country’s tourism industry through the new comedy film "love on bike” we want to make.