History
The Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (French: ''Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes''), abbreviated as FEPACI, was founded in 1969 by a provisional committee at the inaugural Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), and officially established in 1970 in Tunis, at the Carthage Film Festival. In April 2006, FEPACI, under secretary general Jacques Behanzin, collaborated with the South African Department of Arts and Culture and the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) of South Africa to host the first African Film Summit in the Tshwane, Gauteng, South Africa. The summit arose from calls by many in the industry to create an African commission on the audiovisual and cinema industries and a fund to promote the African cinema industry and television programmes. Many representatives of industry-related organisations, such as the Guild of African Directors and the East African Filmmakers Forum, and government statutory bodies, such as the Nigerian Film Corporation, took part in panel discussions at the summit. After the summit, a FEPACI Congress took place in Tshwane, at which, for the first time in its history, members voted that while FEPACI headquarters should remain based in Ouagadougou, the FEPACI Secretariat would be based in South Africa from 2006 to 2010, under the leadership of South African Secretary General Seipati Bulane Hopa. In June 2007, FEPACI called for an investigation into the threatened closure of the Film Resource Unit in South Africa. The FRU is a major distributor of African films, and, according to FEPACI's statement is also "a political, ideological platform that creates a sense of pride and resonance that Africa can stand by itself and can initiate, own and control instruments of change and transformation". On 7 June 2017, a letter of agreement was signed among FEPACI,People
Founding members of both FEPACI and FESPACO included: * Sudanese filmmaker Gadalla Gubara (1920–2008) * South African filmmaker and actor Lionel Ngakane (1928–2003) * Ghanaian filmmaker and actor King Ampaw (born 1940) * Gabonese actor and filmmaker Philippe Mory (1935–2016) Senegalese filmmaker Ababacar Samb Makharam served as secretary general from 1971 to 1977. Burkinabé filmmaker Gaston Kaboré (b.1951) had a longstanding involvement with the organisation as well as FESPACO, and was secretary general from 1985 to 1997. In 2000, Burkinabé filmmaker Pierre Rouamba was coordinator of FEPACI. As of January 2016, Kenyan filmmaker Jane Munene-Murago was executive director. Gabonese filmmaker Charles Mensah (1948–2011), who was director general of the Centre National du Cinéma Gabonais (CENACI; later known as Institut Gabonais de l'Image et du Son (Gabonese Institute of Image and Sound), or IGIS), for more than 20 years, served a term as president of FEPACI.Description
Based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, FEPACI described itself as "the continental voice of filmmakers from various regions of Africa and theReferences
Further reading
*{{cite journal , title=The FEPACI and Its Artistic Legacies , first=Sada , last=Niang, journal=Black Camera , publisher=Indiana University Press , volume=12 , issue=2 , year=2021 , issn=1536-3155 , doi=10.2979/blackcamera.12.2.11 , page=176