MultiChoice Africa's MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF) has officially opened, running three film academy hubs for West, East and Southern Africa in respectively Lagos, Nigeria, in Nairobi, Kenya and also in Lusaka, Zambia.
The 60 students have been chosen from across 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa - excluding South Africa where M-Net is running its now 4-year old Magic in Motion Academy that the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF) is based on.
Out of over 3 100 applications, 20 students were chosen for each of the three campuses of the new film academy.
During their yearlong internship the students will create local content that will be broadcast on the various M-Net channels carried on MultiChoice's DStv and GOtv satellite pay-TV platforms throughout Africa, including Africa Magic, Maisha Magic East, Maisha Magic Bongo, Zambezi Magic, Pearl Magic, M-Net and SuperSport.
It's however what happens afterward their yearlong internship and the local content that they help to create afterwards, that is of much bigger and greater importance to MultiChoice.
TVwithThinus spoke with Nyiko Shiburi, MultiChoice Africa's regional director for Southern Africa, on Thursday night at the pan-African pay-TV operator's official opening in Lusaka, who said that the purpose of the MultiChoice Talent Factory is to increase the capacity of Africa's film and TV industry to produce more and quality video content.
"We've identified that there's a gap in the industry when it comes to creating local content and telling our own African stories, by Africans."
"We really want to try and improve that. This is a way for us to really build Africa's film and TV industry, and to create that bigger capacity in this industry to tell our own stories."
"The idea is obviously that the output from this MultiChoice Talent Factory, we need to see the content that they will produce during their internship, but also long afterwards, on our platforms - that is the ultimate," said Nyiko Shiburi.
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