The Fotti Cultures Nomadic Art Center offers a two-week training course in film professions. The training, intended for young talents from the regions of Thiès, Saint-Louis, Louga, Ziguinchor and Kolda, will focus on acting and directing.
By Khady SONKO – “Culture is no longer a hobby, but an important factor in the economy of this country.” This is the conviction of Ives Préira, president of Fotti cultures. This Nomadic Art Center is in residence-training in Ziguinchor for 14 days during which 14 young people aspiring to be actors, directors or screenwriters, will benefit from the supervision through two modules of two professional trainers, in this case Oumar Diolo, Belgian-Senegalese actor, and Django Schrevens, director-screenwriter. “We are in residence in Ziguinchor, our third residence which has selected 14 young people from Thiès, Saint-Louis, Louga, Ziguinchor and Kolda, thanks to the mixed partnership cooperation between the State of Senegal and Wallonia-Brussels”, explains Ives Préira, president of Fotti cultures.
Some of the participants will receive a game of actors which will be directed by Oumar Diolo and the other module on the scenario and the realization will be taught by Django. “They will try to combine these two modules to ultimately produce capsules to record this residency-training,” explained the president of Fotti. According to Ives Préira, the arts scene was one of the first activities of his association. “From 2008 to 2016, we trained young people because many of them were active in the performing arts, but apparently lacked training. By desire or will, they did it without many tools. We made productions, stagings with those who toured and participated in festivals. We had a Xar Yalla production which toured in Belgium and others also which toured in Belgium, in France… Which proves that supervised, young people can produce something”, developed Mr. Préira.
He is sorry that we no longer give enough importance to the theatre, to the performing arts. “It may be due to the competition from tele-cinema which is much more accessible today than the performing arts. It is an art that does not live well, it must be recognized. We tried to find solutions. It worked because among the young people we trained, there are some who work abroad and tour with world-famous companies,” he says.
Since 2017, he notes, cinema, through TV series, has experienced significant emergence. This has attracted many young people, but they lack the tools to be professional. This interest of young people for this art pushed Fotti to bring the same experience as at the theater level. This is how the association found professionals from Belgium and Senegal to supervise young people.
Since 2018, Fotti cultures has been working in the training of young people who are active around culture. Since 2017, the association has devoted itself to cinema and audiovisual and has trained 80 young people in the cinema and audiovisual professions. Directors, technicians, cameramen, actors, screenwriters… Amadou Touba Coly, City Councilor and representative of the mayor, praised the initiative of Fotti Cultures which, through this training, participates in the development of the Ziguinchor region.
ksonko@lequotidien.sn