Help African Journalists Tell Africa's Stories

Dear AFP Supporter,

Greetings from Amsterdam, where thanks to your generous support we are making progress on our shared mission to help African journalist filmmakers craft new ways to tell the stories of their homeland.

AFP Director Jody Hassett Sanchez is currently guiding Stella Oigo of Kenya and Irene Fon Zih of Cameroon through the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). IDFA boasts Europe’s oldest and largest co-financing and co-production market.  The festival also presents an excellent opportunity for our students to screen cutting-edge documentaries, attend workshops about the craft of filmmaking and introduce themselves to top festival programmers and broadcasters.

"IDFA is helping me understand the importance of creating a distribution strategy during preproduction of my documentaries, says Irene. 

"I've met some inspiring people who are sharing their work on merging technology and filmmaking and I plan to incorporate these ideas both online and offline when I return to Cameroon."

 Stella and Irene, both AFP program participants, have shown tremendous creativity and dedication to bringing their visions to video in the face of numerous challenges.  While in Amsterdam they are also testing new equipment for future AFP participants.

"This is my first time at a film festival and a lot of my questions are getting answered here, says Stella.  I'm learning all aspects of pitching, financing and distribution. "

Thanks to each of you for helping Stella and Irene learn new ways to tell the many important stories of Africa.

With our gratitude, 

The AFP Team