In 2010 South Africa hosted the Fifa World Cup and WFC trained young people to cover it from the perspective of the townships.
Driven by WFC Founder Member, Simcelile ‘Simi’ Kalimashe, training began in Khayelitsha in April 2010. Tutors were Tinashe Makwande, a Zimbabwean film student at UCT; Lukhanyo Kalata who had previously been a sports reporter for South African national broadcaster; and WFC Founder, Alice Bragg, who had written the teaching curriculum.
Alongside the Khayelisha training, WFC also taught a group of younger people from a neighbouring township, Nyanga, in partnership with Amy Biehl Foundation.
Combined, WFC had around 35 students and together, they made over 80 reports -from shabeens, fan parks, people’s homes, the streets - as a consequence of learning these skills and having the equipment to make films, some team members also began shooting news reports. We made a website for the reports www.worldfilmcollective.com/SA2010 . It was an incredibly exciting time.
Once the World Cup was over, some filmmakers wanted to go on and establish a production company. A woman called Emma Kaye gave WFC the chance to develop a video platform on a mobile social network called Mxit, and for six months the team made 4x 1min films every week that were available for download on the platform. Unfortunately, despite Emma’s projections, there were not enough downloads to provide an income stream and the team were unable to continue making them. However, the production company continued until 2014 making programmes for community channel, Cape Town TV, running a programmes funded by Cape Film Commission and The Premier League and finally, making a 26-part series for national broadcaster, eTV.
In 2014 WFC were ready to roll out their Sports and News Reporting programme in Rio de Janeiro. Founder Member, Vanessa Goes, made contact with Liliane in City of God favela who was happy to host the project. Tutors, Jardel and Mateus, both graduates from Fernando Mereilles film school, Cinema Nosso, taught the programme.
