February 24, 2012

Faith’s story: success as a young woman in filmmaking




Are you a young woman living in East Africa?   Do you know any women in filmmaking? Have you ever thought of becoming a filmmaker?

Hot Sun Foundation invited young women to meet a successful young Kenyan woman film editor, Faith Wavinya Mumo, age 25. 

How did Faith succeed in the filmmaking industry where there are very few successful women?  



Faith Wavinya, a Kibera Film School Graduate shares her success story in the filmmaking industry.













Faith started as a trainee in digital editing with the Hot Sun Films feature film production Togetherness Supreme in 2009.  Every single day, rain or shine, Faith was on the set, capturing downloads from the Red One camera.  Working with a technology new to Kenya, Faith demonstrated her enormous capacity for learning and perseverance. 

Ingredients of Faith's Success:
1.     1 Passion
2.     2 Patience
3.     3 Ambitious but humble
4.     4 Eager to learn
5.     5 Perseverance

For young women like Faith who have the passion and perseverance, Kibera Film School offers the choice to prepare themselves to enter the film industry. 




Young women brainstorm on ways to encourage women to apply to Kibera Film School.
 Hot Sun Foundation is committed to encouraging young women to join the Kibera Film School.  Deadline 29th February.  Applications at info@hotsunfoundation.org

If you know other successful young women in the filmmaking industry in East Africa, please share their stories with us here or on facebook- kiberafilmschool or on twitter @slumfilmschool

To support the great youth of the Kibera Film School, please visit our Global Giving Page

February 17, 2012

Reinhert Onduru, at a shoot for Tazama TV Magazine.



Reinhert Onduru "art enables us to find ourselves and us he can attest scripting is fun you can lose self in it!!


Reinhert Onduru,  boom man at a shoot for Tazama TV Magazine. He is among 2 students from Kibera Film School attending a workshop in Kilimanjaro Film Institute in Tanzania, other participants are from film schools in Rwanda and Burundi. 








To support the great youth of the Kibera Film School, please visit our Global Giving Page

February 16, 2012

Film and Photography; My Passion


My name Grishon Onyango. I am  21 years old.  My passion is photography and filmmaking. 
I got my chance when my friend told me about Hot Sun Foundation. My mom told me to come, but I didn't know how to get here.  I tried three times and finallyfound it and joined Kibera Film School.
I am just feeling happy about myself.  I go from step to step.  I didn't know how to edit and now I do.  I keep learning.
I made a short video for the project "Operation Smile" that helps children with cleft palates and other problems.  I am proud that my skills can help others.  Now I have some experience. I am a filmmaker.
Hot Sun Foundation is a platform to achieve want you want to do in life.
Message to our supporters:
I just want to thank you for being kind and generous. 
I hope you will continue helping and you will be blessed.

Sincere thanks from all of us at Hot Sun Foundation!



To support the great youth of the Kibera Film School, please visit our Global Giving Page

February 15, 2012

Kibera Film School Students Attending a Workshop at the Kilimanjaro Film Institute.



Reinhert Onduru, a trainee at Kibera Film School reading a paper at the workshop.



Participants with teachers getting ready for the shoot. Among them is Aida Achieng an assistant trainer at Kibera Film School with the camera.



Taking a break to socialize and share at the field. Aida where do you come from











Participants at the Kilimanjaro Film Institute www.kilimanjarofilm.org among the Aida Achieng doing researches from the daily magazines visualizing and transforming them into visual film.







To support the great youth of the Kibera Film School, please visit our Global Giving Page

February 8, 2012

Kibera TV raises hope in Nairobi slum

Web-based news net offers behind-the-camera training

NAIROBI, KENYA -- Not many good news stories make it out of Kibera, a sprawling slum in the heart of the Kenyan capital, and the ones that do usually reflect the rougher side of life in this impoverished area.It was an awareness of that hard reality that prompted some young residents to shine a different light on Nairobi's largest slum, and give its people a voice.
The result is Kibera TV, a Web-based news entity that was created by the Hot Sun Foundation, an American NGO, to help locals tell their own stories about the positive side of life there, says assistant producer Clarence Ilavonga.
The station is run by 22-year-old Ilavonga with Roy Okello, Grishon Onyango and Vincent Oduor, plus volunteers Berry Muga, Stephen Okoth and Michelle Mulemi.
Like his partners, Ilavonga is a graduate of the Kibera Film School, also founded by Hot Sun, which teaches the fundamentals of shooting and editing.
The real-life experience of running the station has been a crash course in journalism.
Each reporter films and edits his stories using Flip cams and state-of-the-art editing equipment donated by Hot Sun. The news segments are then uploaded onto a dedicated YouTube channel, which has attracted a following in Kenya and beyond.
While some of their fellow film school grads chose to pursue careers at Kenya's established media houses, Ilavonga took up the challenge at Kibera TV because it offered him a chance to "talk to the community about how they want this place to change."
"It's like we are the light of this community," he says.
Two years after its founding, the station remains a work in progress. The Hot Sun Foundation still underwrites Kibera TV's costs of around $10,000 a year, and the station is looking for ways to forge partnerships with traditional media houses.
The group inked a deal with Roma Media, which broadcasts its reports on TV screens in buses and the ubiquitous minibus-taxis that ply the capital's streets. Talks are also under way with Kenyan web Kiss TV to broadcast short news segments during nightly programming.
Ilavonga hopes the station will soon be able to expand beyond Kibera. He also hopes his experiences will be a springboard for bigger opportunities in Kenyan media.
"But before that, I need to secure the future of Kibera TV," he says. "I need to lift it. When it stands on its own, then I'll do more."
Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com
 


To support the great youth of the Kibera Film School, please visit our Global Giving Page
It's not just a name welcome and learn the art of filmmaking. Our training is hands-on.