Why M-NET’s Africa film monopoly is causing discomfort

Even before Haile Gerima’s film Teza was declared winner of the Golden Stallion of Yennenga at the FESPACO this year, M-NET had already signed a cheque for the film’s rights.

That effectively shut out any other distributors interested in the film —not unless they have the patience to wait for M-NET to screen it or have wads of notes to pay the network.

Shot for over 14 years, Teza is an epic film set in the chaos of the tyrannical regime of the former Prime Minister Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia.

From the same festival, which is considered the largest pan -African film event, Mike Dearham who is M-Net’s Head of Sales and African Film Library Acquisition bagged seven other African films.

In the library are several Kenyan movies, including Help by Robby Bresson, Enough Is Enough by Kibaara Kaugi, The Race, a Gikuyu film with English subtitles and Cajetan Boy’s films.

Mike, an expert on film distribution who once worked for the South African Film Resource Unit has other even more serious assignments at M-NET.

Besides buying rights directly from African filmmakers, M-Net Electronic Media Network has also been buying all rights of African movies in the hands of foreign distributors.

“We’re buying rights back from Europe,” said Dearham in an interview with Balancing Act.

So far, the library with over 450 African films contains 80 per cent of top African films ever made.

“There are two to three (key) film-makers missing. Some do not own their own rights and they are scattered across eight co-production companies and others do not believe in going for 25 years. People told us it would be impossible but it has turned out not to be,” he said.

In a brief on the library, M-NET says the facility was intended to feature a fine collection of African film titles—including features, shorts and documentaries produced in Africa and the African Diaspora.

There are plans to put the library online to facilitate Video on Demand (VOD) business where African film enthusiasts with some money can visit, pay and watch from wherever they are.

To do this effectively without legal hitches, the African film library has been acquiring commercial distribution rights after paying acquisition fee. With this film resource, M-NET has become a content provider for over 80 per cent of the free to air broadcasters in Africa, selling films at between $ 1,000 each but still retaining global rights to the films and even selling the films directly to consumers on DVD, especially through South Africa’s Nu-Metro.

“The initiative is principally an M-Net project aimed at further “Growing African film in the African century, says a brief from M-NET.

Besides owning and making money from this huge collection, M-NET also intends to capture and grow its African viewership by providing relevant content that is now the buzzword with African media circles as it struggles against increased media exposure and piracy on the continent.