‘Local movies still struggle to sell’

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espite making inroads in terms of production quality and acting, local movies are struggling to find an easy and clear way to sell and realise revenue, Filmmakers Association of Malawi (Fama) says.

In an interview, Fama vice-president Ashukile Mwakisulu said although the local movie makers are doing their best to improve on quality, finding a market for their product is still a challenge.

“I know most film lovers in Malawi complain that they have no access to local movies. The challenge is that DVDs are fast phasing out. We are now in the digital era where information is shared via the Internet. As such, films are accessed through these platforms,” he said.

Mwakisulu said as Fama, they have been trying to have their own local streaming platforms, but there are some challenges.

“But the biggest challenge is that not many Malawians can access the Internet. Therefore, to come up with a way of distributing our films is not easy. Some are using flask disks and memory cards, but these two have challenges as people can easily share,” he said.

Mwakisulu, however, said they are optimistic that once YouTube is monetised in Malawi, filmmakers will use the opportunity.

“We should expect more on this platform,” he said.

On his part, one of the producers of the trending local movie School Days Daudi Shaibu Malawi said they are looking forward to having YouTube monetised in Malawi.

“We uploaded our movie so that we can build a fan base. We know that once the platform is monetised in Malawi, we will have fans watching and following whatever we upload, thereby earning us some funds,” he said.

Malawi said at this point, digital is the only way to go, but there is a need to have the audience to consume the content.

“The local movie industry has what it takes to get to the level of Nollywood and other advanced movie industries. All we need is support and the right channels to market our content and get revenue from it,” he said.

Commenting on the matter, local movie enthusiast Albert Kambiri said what School Days did by releasing their movie on YouTube even when it is not monetised will help them in future.

“They may not realise the money now, but long-term effects are that Malawians will look up to the producers of this movie as the best. Infact, they have marketed the whole local movie industry,” he said.

After School Days was released on YouTube, another local movie All We Have is Us was also uploaded. Another local movie already on the platform is Submerged.