You can tell how excited Jean-Luc Maertens is about this assignment - helping African directors to produce documentaries about endangered ecosystems - simply by looking at him. CFI’s director for Africa has become deeply and personally involved in this project, from the development stage to the assignment’s implementation on the ground. ‘The ecological problems Africa is experiencing today are at the heart of tomorrow’s concerns, if you look at their social and economic impact’, explains the former journalist, whose credits include the French TV programme, La Marche du Siècle.

It all started in 2004 when the URTI (International University of Radio and Television), an NGO working to distribute cultural television programmes throughout the world, decided to support the development of co-produced documentaries in countries in the southern hemisphere. With financial backing from UNESCO, RTBF (the Belgian French-language television network), a partnership with four West African television networks, CIRTEF (the International Organization of French language Television and Radio), and France Télévisions, CFI took on the task of coordinating this unique, and hitherto unattempted, cooperation project. The assignment corresponds closely to CFI’s aim of strengthening production in Africa.

A ‘gamble on the future’

The project itself took place in three stages. Initially, the public service television networks of Senegal, Niger, Mali and Benin selected four experienced directors. In May 2005, they met up in Cotonou, at CIRTEF’s post-production centre, for a writing workshop led by Jean-Luc Maertens and Roger Beeckmans, documentary director for RTBF. The directors began filming almost immediately. A second workshop focusing on viewing rushes and rough assembly, and post-production, took place in April 2005. Finally, the films were edited and mixed with the support of a team from CIRTEF’s regional training and production centre in Cotonou. These films will initially be broadcast exclusively by partner African television networks. They will then be incorporated into CFI’s core programme supply and made available to all tv partners, as well as being broadcast on TV5 Africa. ‘These documentaries produced in Africa by African directors, are a gamble on the future, a gamble which hopefully will finally give the directors the resources they need to work’ (Jean-Luc Maertens).