#1392 - Film and Television Base

In fact, before World War I, the Russian railway network had already covered surrounding countries and regions as much as possible, such as the Far East Empire, Persia, Central Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe.

East Africa doesn't have such conditions. If East Africa wants to further extend its railway network in Africa, it can only achieve significant progress in West Africa.

To the north is the Sahara Desert, and to the south, there is only a small area of the British South African colonies left.

However, due to the Gulf of Guinea, maritime transport is more cost-effective than railway transport for communication and trade between East Africa and West Africa. East Africa can have a significant impact on West Africa without railways.

......

The focus shifts to Kitwe, in the Copperbelt.

A year has passed since Kitwe began its economic transformation, but Kitwe's transformation path has not been smooth sailing.

After all, accustomed to a long-term command economy, many officials in East Africa have not yet adapted to the rules and methods of the market economy. Similarly, the Kitwe Municipal Government should also feel confused about the reforms.

Kitwe has introduced some reform measures and policies that are more in line with the actual situation, but either they are difficult to take effect in a short period of time, or they are restricted by huge capital requirements and cannot be started for a long time.

Are there any good projects that can take effect quickly, that Kitwe can afford economically, and that meet the needs of Kitwe's economic development in all aspects?

After more than a year of exploration, Mayor De Bern of Kitwe City has really found a shortcut to development, which is the film and television industry.

"The film and television industry is a completely emerging industry. The emergence of this industry is much later than the automobile industry, almost close to the end of the 19th century. It can be said to be a blue ocean."

"Moreover, the film and television industry belongs to the tertiary industry, and because of its cultural attributes, it is conducive to improving the popularity of Kitwe City. With popularity, our other plans can be launched based on it."

De Bern vigorously promoted to his subordinates at the Kitwe year-end economic conference. Developing the film and television industry is certainly a visionary idea, but this may not be recognized by everyone.

"Mayor De Bern, although your idea is very good, in this year, we have just started the comprehensive management of the city's environment under financial pressure, whether it is closing mines or factories with heavy pollution, or restoring forests and river ecology..."

"These have made the city government's finances precarious. After all, in addition to the massive expenditures, our economic transformation policy in 1921 has also caused the government's revenue to decline relatively seriously. It can be said that the government's financial reports will not look good in the next two or three years."

Kitwe is a typical industrial and mining city, so the first cut of economic transformation was made on the city's economic lifeline, that is, copper mining and non-ferrous metal processing.

This can be said to be fatal to Kitwe's economy. Of course, De Bern doesn't see it that way.

De Bern said: "Admittedly, copper mines and related industries based on copper mines are the current lifeline of our Kitwe economy, but this industry has almost no room for growth."

"Especially in the increasingly fierce market competition environment, we can't even compete with the neighboring Lubumbashi, not to mention a group of coastal cities are also eyeing us."

"If we don't make changes, the final result will be that even if we continue to invest heavily in the development of the copper mining industry, it will become more and more difficult, and we will not be able to achieve good results, and may eventually be surpassed by the coastal areas."

"Therefore, finding a new economic outlet is something that Kitwe City must do. We cannot pursue short-term economic data achievements at the expense of consuming Kitwe City's development potential."

"As for the current financial pressure faced by the municipal government, in my opinion, it is not entirely a problem. After all, economic transformation requires some payment. Therefore, promoting the landing of the film and television industry in Kitwe is a key economic project for us next year."

"I hope that during the Fifth Five-Year Plan period, Kitwe City can become the fourth film and television industry center in the country, and even build the first film and television city in East Africa."

Currently, the recognized film and television industry centers in East Africa are distributed in three cities. The first is the cultural and foreign exchange center of East Africa, the capital of East Africa, Rhine City.

However, the film and television industry in Rhine City largely serves politics. After all, this is the political center of the country.

The more commercially successful cities are Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. As the most developed cities in East Africa, these two cities have the economic advantages to develop this industry.

For example, funds, talents, technology, and markets, these advantages are not available to most cities in East Africa.

Overall, Mombasa's film and television industry is developing the best, because in addition to its economic advantages, it also has the advantages of foreign exchange and natural conditions.

The foreign exchange is very important for the film and television industry, which means that the film and television industry practitioners in Mombasa can better integrate with the international community, so as to maintain continuous progress in technology and creative content.

Although East Africa is a country with an early development of the film and television industry, the progress of the European and American film and television industries is actually not slow, and the main reason for this is that the management of European and American societies is more relaxed, or almost no management of the film and television industry.

In this way, they can shoot much more content than East Africa. Although it may cause a mixed situation, it is conducive to opening up the film and television market. After all, only more content can better meet the needs of the market.

East Africa's opening up of the market was only after 1910, and after the market was opened, the East African government also has a regulatory role in the development of the film and television industry, so the East African film and television industry naturally has a golden hoop on its head while developing.

This puts higher demands on the practitioners in the East African film and television industry, so international exchanges are conducive to stimulating their creative inspiration. Of course, this is also conducive to plagiarism of content, but this is a trivial issue.

In addition, the convenience of foreign exchanges in Mombasa also allows him to come into contact with some new technologies, especially the exchanges with Germany and Austria-Hungary, which have played a huge role in the development of Mombasa's film and television industry.

After all, East Africa's own historical and cultural foundation is too weak. Going further back, East Africa couldn't possibly film movies or create related literature and music about capturing and slaughtering black slaves during the East African colonial era.

Currently, East Africa's film industry leans towards filming traditional German historical subjects, with some historical and cultural themes from the Far Eastern Empire added. Undoubtedly, the source material for both comes from Germany, Austria, and the Far Eastern Empire.

Of course, East Africa isn't entirely without its own film material, especially in the science fiction genre, which is very popular, similar to the United States and the Soviet Union in the previous world. East Africa shares with these two countries a relative lack of history, although the Soviet Union might be slightly better off, but not by much.

Overall, the weakness of historical and cultural foundations is a significant limiting factor in the development of East Africa's film industry. East Africa tends to seek experience from other countries.

Mombasa, as East Africa's gateway city to the world, benefits from this, something Dar es Salaam cannot match.

Naturally, Mombasa is also a city very suitable for the early development of the film industry.

In terms of climate, Mombasa is located in the transitional zone between the East African plateau and the coastal plains, the intersection of the central and northern regions, and the transition zone between semi-humid and semi-arid climates.

Simply put, Mombasa generally has a dry climate with many sunny days and a suitable temperature, which is conducive to filming.

Take Hollywood in the United States as an example. Hollywood is located in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, with a mild climate, plenty of sunshine, and mostly sunny days throughout the year, making it ideal for film shooting.

Especially in the early days when film shooting technology was not advanced enough and heavily relied on natural light, Hollywood's climatic advantages were extremely obvious. For example, when shooting outdoors, abundant sunlight could provide good lighting conditions, reducing reliance on artificial lighting and lowering shooting costs and difficulty.

Mombasa is quite similar to Hollywood in its overall situation.

At the same time, because it is located near the intersection of grasslands and deserts, the transitional area between plateaus and plains, and close to the Indian Ocean, the complexity and diversity of climate, terrain, and landforms make location shooting in Mombasa very convenient.

Deberon said, "The development of the film industry in Mombasa and Dar es Salaam is instructive for us, and Kitwe has its own unique advantages, such as our proximity to Rhein City."

Deberon mentioned this because Rhein City, as the capital of East Africa, has the best educational resources in the country, including many of East Africa's top universities, including future film talent.

Deberon said, "For example, the National Media University of Rhein City, the Rhein City Film Academy, etc. Therefore, we don't need to worry too much about talent and technology, and we can cooperate with these higher education institutions."

Because Kitwe is assigned to the Central Province and is not far from Rhein City, it greatly facilitates cooperation between Kitwe and relevant institutions.

"Moreover, the film industry in the Midwest currently lacks competition. As long as we can take the lead, we can get a share of this new industry."

"Throughout the Midwest, except for Rhein City, there are no other cities known for film development. Rhein City's own film industry is actually not very market-oriented, which actually benefits us in Kitwe."

"I believe that a large number of new film bases may appear across the country in the future, but by that time, investing again will definitely not be able to compete with other cities with economic advantages."

"Therefore, starting next year, our city should make relevant arrangements on how to vigorously develop the film industry. In my vision, Kitwe should become the first film city in East Africa."

"This coincides with our new round of infrastructure requirements. We can take advantage of the opportunity of urban environmental management to build a batch of landscapes that facilitate film shooting, thereby laying the foundation for another film base in the central region in the future."

Currently, in order to address the environmental problems caused by over-exploitation in Kitwe from the last century to the beginning of this century, namely copper mining and non-ferrous metal smelting and processing, Kitwe has launched the so-called new infrastructure to restore the local ecological environment and related projects.

Deberon believes that this opportunity can be used to promote the landing of the film industry in Kitwe, which is a win-win situation.

"For example, how to manage abandoned mines is a problem we faced in the past, but now that we are building a film base, we might as well make use of the abandoned mines, eliminate their safety hazards, and use them as film shooting locations."

"For example, some film themes about mine workers can take place in these mines after we have managed and rectified them."

"And the original mining machinery and equipment will become ready-made props, and we don't need to consider how to dispose of these wastes anymore."

"Also, in the process of urban renovation, we should invite some professional film industry practitioners from Rhein City and other places to offer some suggestions for the renovation of Kitwe's urban area."

The Kitwe urban renovation project is also an important task in this round of Kitwe's economic transformation. After all, after Kitwe decided to develop other industries, it shut down a number of heavily polluting enterprises. At the same time, due to past rough management, Kitwe's infrastructure is also too outdated.

However, now, for these outdated infrastructures, such as roads, factories, railways, etc., it may not be necessary to directly demolish them, or some of them can be selectively retained as a unique memory of Kitwe's past industrial and mining development era, which is also part of East Africa's national historical memory.

After all, Kitwe is one of the earliest industrial and mining cities in East Africa, and it can be considered "historically long-standing." It has made great contributions to the early industrial development of East Africa.

Of course, which landmarks and industrial and mining heritage to retain specifically requires the guidance of professionals. Before, Deberon had not considered film industry personnel, but now he can let them participate, thereby contributing to the construction of the film base in the future.

In this way, Kitwe's original industrial and mining heritage can be reused again. In addition, under the natural ecological restoration work in Kitwe, the local natural landscape will also be significantly improved, and Kitwe itself has relatively rich natural landscape elements, rainforests, grasslands, rivers, mountains, swamps, lakes, hills, etc., which can all provide help for the development of the film industry.