The africadoc and impala programs
List of countries concerned
Algeria - Benin - Burkina Faso - Burundi - Cameroon - Ivory Coast - Congo - Gabon - Guinea - Mali - Morocco - Mauritania - Niger - Senegal - Chad - Togo - Tunisia - DRC - Central African Republic - Rwanda
Films accompanied by Africadoc
The Africadoc program is the oldest created by Ardèche Images, the “parent company” of Docmonde. A first writing residency in 2002, on the island of Gorée in Senegal, followed by co-production meetings in 2003 gave birth to Africadoc which has since organized 48 writing residencies, including an annual residency in Bobo Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) in partnership with Les films du Djabadjah and the Association Africadoc Burkina (2AB) between 2009 and 2018, and 15 Co-production meetings, between 2002 and 2017.
From 2006, the co-production meetings were set up in Saint-Louis, Senegal, which hosted the opening of the Master 2 in Creative Documentary Production at Gaston Berger University the following year, in partnership with Stendhal University in Grenoble. In 2015, a production department was also created. The 2 Masters in Directing and Production ended in 2017. From 2014 to 2016, the Africadoc production program, supported by the ACP Culture+ program of the European Union, also trained 47 young producers in the fundamentals of documentary film production. With the installation of the co-production meetings in Saint-Louis, Senegal, a program of screenings and debates was set up from 2010, which became the Saint Louis Documentary Film Festival in 2014, organized every year in December.
Since the beginning of the programme to June 2020, 105 films have been produced and 18 medium-length or feature-length documentary films are in production. Additionally, 84 short films have come out of the Master in filmmaking.
In 2021, a workshop and international co-production meetings were organized in hybrid format in Côte d'Ivoire in partnership with Africadoc Côte d'Ivoire. Between 7 and 8 projects out of the 10 presented found co-production partners.
IMPALA PROJECT
For a decade, more and more documentary films produced in French-speaking Africa have been circulating in major international festivals, broadcast on television or distributed in theaters. Many filmmakers living on the continent contribute to this growth and aspire to produce and direct films about their own realities. However, the professional fabric remains fragile and films still circulate poorly from one country to another.
Based on this observation and drawing on their respective experiences in the region, Docmonde and Ateliers Varan have joined forces with 13 local partners in 11 French-speaking African countries to initiate the IMPALA project in 2021.
In its first phase (2021-2024), the program was deployed in 6 French-speaking countries in West Africa – Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Niger, Burkina Faso and Togo – and 5 French-speaking countries in Central Africa – Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon.
It has 3 parts:
- The creation of a catalogue of African documentary films distributed by partner associations in the 11 project countries, mainly aimed at students and high school students.
- The organization of practical training workshops in the production and editing of short documentary films.
- The organization of writing and production workshops to support feature-length documentary projects through to presentation at international co-production meetings
Our partners in Central Africa: ARDC – Association of Cameroonian Documentary Filmmakers, Central African Traveling Digital Cinema, 3C – Club of Congolese Filmmakers, Association of Congolese Women Filmmakers, Gabon Ciné Doc.
Our West African partners: Africadoc Côte d'Ivoire, 2AB – Association Africadoc Burkina, Cinéma Numérique Ambulant Sénégal, Diasoba Mali, Togolese Association of Ambulant Digital Cinema, Culture Plus Niger, Semfilms and Cinéma Numérique Ambulant Afrique.
IMPALA is supported by AFD – French Development Agency, UNESCO, the ACP-EU Culture program, the CNC – DEENTAL, the Ile-de-France Region, the French Institute, the network of French Embassies, the African Culture Fund, the OIF, the City of Paris, PROCIREP, SCAM and FONSIC.
Find all the latest news about the project on the IMPALA Facebook page.
