SASFED is officially the only Full Member of FEPACI in South Africa
HISTORY
From its inception in 1969, FEPACI, the PAN AFRICAN FEDERATION OF FILMMAKERS, in French, FEDERATION PAN AFRICAINE DES CINEASTES, from where we got the acronym, FEPACI, has been the continental voice of filmmakers from various regions of Africa and the Diaspora.
FEPACI’s founding fathers include Sembene Ousmane of Senegal, Lionel Ngakani of South Africa, both of whom have passed on, and living icons like TAHAR SHARIA of Tunisia and GADALA CUBARA of Sudan, who at 84 and blind, is still making films
FEPACI, has in collaboration with affiliate national bodies, its membership and relevant national and international governments and private sector institutions, worked towards developing and implementing solutions to the common challenges and problems that African filmmakers experience in funding, production and distribution of African audio – visual content on the continent and aboard.
FEPACI’S MANDATE
FEPACI mandate is to further professionalize and institutionalize the cinema and audio- visual industry in Africa, so as to the unite African filmmakers and empower them with a view to encouraging the ownership and control of Africa’s imaging and imagination. It also includes the streamlining of activities across the continent that are aimed at developing the African Audio Visual Industries in such areas as the development and maintenance of an Archives and Research Centre, the resuscitating of cinema houses, the protection of copyright and intellectual property of filmmakers and the standardisation of curriculums of film schools across the continent.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Among FEPACI’s achievements to date are, notably:
• The establishment of FESPACO, the Pan Africa Film Festival of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
• The establishment of the Southern African Film Festival in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1990
• The establishment of the magazine ECRANS D’ AFRQUE (African Screens) in collaboration with Centro Oriamentto Educativa (CEO in Milan) in 1993.
• The founding of the Zanzibar International Film Festival, (ZIFF) in 1995-6
• Contribution towards the founding of SITHENGI, the Cape Town World Cinema Festival and so on.
FEPACI has observer status with AU, formerly OAU, and had agreed with the AU on a draft Memorandum of Understanding soon to be signed by both FEPACI and the AU.
STRUCTURE
FEPACI’S membership constitutes 53 counties encompassing 6 regions across Africa and 3 regions across the Diaspora; namely: in Europe, in the Americans and in Asia. FEPACI holds its Congress every four years. At its 7th Congress in Tshwane, Pretoria South Africa in April 2006, FEPACI secretariat was moved from Benin Republic in West Africa to Johannesburg in South Africa. The Congress is the highest organ of FEPACI.
The FEPACI structure is compromised of the office of the President, who is non-executive, the Secretary General, who is the chief executive officer and Treasurer Genera, the chief financial officer. The regions mentioned above are represented by Regional Secretaries who implement the vision, mission programmers of FEPACI from their regional bases.
PROJECTS
From time to time FEPACI engages in projects that will help actualize its mandate of further professionalizing and institutionalizing the audio-visual industry on the Continent and the African Diaspora. In this connection FEPACI currently has a number of projects for implementation in the short, medium and long term.
In the medium and long term FEPACI has the following projects:
1. Regional coordinator and Membership Strategy implementations
2. Establishment of African Cinema Archives Centre.
3. Harmonization of Film Education Standards – leading to a coherent audio-visual cinema curriculum.
4. Film Distribution and Exhibition: Rehabilitation of Cinema houses, many of which have given way to churches, - to name but a few.
REGISTRATION
FEPACI is registered in South Africa under section 21 of the Companies’ Act of South Africa as a non profit organization. Its registered offices are at:
SCI-BONO DISCOVERY CENTRE
1,Cnr President and Miriam Makeba Streets
Newtown 2113
Johannesburg, South Africa
info@fepaci-fil.org
www.fepaci-film.org
