7 Introductory Online & On-site Courses

The Ladima Foundation is announcing a major expansion of its professional training and development arm, The Ladima Film Academy, with the support of the DW Akademie. As part of its on-going commitment to the professional development of women in film, TV and content across the African continent, the Ladima Foundation is expanding and formalizing its education and training offering for 2021 and beyond.

Earlier this year, in January 2020 two short courses in animation and documentary film took place in Lagos, Nigeria, and building on that success the Ladima Foundation will now be rolling out comprehensive online and on-site training across seven key film disciplines while further developing intermediate courses for the following areas:

– Documentary filmmaking

– Animation

– Editing

– Cinematography

– Producing

– Directing

– Scriptwriting

These online courses will roll out in January 2021, followed shortly thereafter by on-site courses in Lagos, Nigeria. All of the courses will be FREE to those women who apply and are accepted in the courses. The application process will open in November 2020 via the Ladima Foundation website: https://ladima.africa/. Online courses will be open to all aspiring and emerging professional women in film living in Africa who are members of the Ladima Foundation A-List, whilst onsite courses will be primarily focused on Nigerian women but also open to others depending on Covid-19 protocols.

The A-List is the Ladima Foundation’s online community and database of women professionals across the continent. The FREE community has over 1,300 members and is also currently being upgraded and improved to provide even more social functionality and access to resources. Any woman working in any aspect of film, TV and content production can sign up here to benefit from the knowledge resources, search functionality, and networking opportunities: https://ladima.africa/a-list/

The courses across the disciplines have been developed by world-renowned experts with a particular focus on the African environment and also starting from a feminist perspective. The Ladima Foundation has partnered with a number of respected organisations and professionals to develop and teach these courses.

Ladima’s animation partner, The African Animation Network’s Comfort Arthur is an internationally known British Ghanaian Animator, Illustrator, Editor, Writer and Actress and Winner of Best Animation at the GMA 2016 and AMAA nominee 2016. Comfort ran the short course on basic animation for the Ladima Foundation in January 2020 and will be developing the intermediate course as well as rolling out the online version of the introduction to animation in January 2021.

Scriptwriting and the newly added producing curriculum will be developed by the highly respected team of the Realness Institute, who founded and run the annual Realness Screenwriting Residency and Producers Indaba. Realness’ Selina Ukwuoma will deliver the scriptwriting online course while Cait Pansegrouw and Mehret Mandefro will deliver the e-learning producing course. Ladima is honoured to have this team of experts developing the courses as well as teaching the online courses in 2021.

From the USA and having worked as a cinematographer around the world for over thirty years and with extensive training experience across Africa, Barry Braverman has developed the introductory and intermediate cinematography courses for Ladima from a unique visual storytelling perspective. Notable credits include 2nd Unit Camera for MOONRISE KINGDOM and THE DARJEELING LIMITED, LETHAL WEAPON 4 (HBO FIRST LOOK), long-form television and educational programs for National Geographic, ABC News 20/20 and CBS News SUNDAY MORNING, and music videos for KELLY CLARKSON, BON JOVI, STEVIE WONDER and TANGERINE DREAM.

The South African based team of Kate Boswell and James Tayler of Switch Media are the experts behind the documentary, editing and directing curriculum development. James has over two decades of industry experience in most facets of film production. He now mentors youth from informal settlements across Africa in film production as lead on Slum Dwellers International’s youth program Know Your City TV. At present he produces the social impact fiction feature “The Legend of the Vagabond Queen” with the Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation and Justice Empowerment Initiative Nigeria with support from Sundance Institute and World Cinema Fund. Kate is a creative director and stylist who has worked in print media, design, advertising and film for over twenty years. As a media maker she is interested in collaborative, interdisciplinary work that explores gender politics and contemporary issues of social and environmental justice.

For more information about the Ladima Foundation and Film Academy please visit www.ladima.africa.

About DW Akademie

DW Akademie is Deutsche Welle’s center for international media development. As a strategic partner of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), DW Akademie carries out media development projects that strengthen the human right to freedom of opinion and promote free access to information. DW Akademie also works on projects funded by the German Foreign Office and the European Union – in approximately 50 developing and emerging countries.