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Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
PLAYERS in Bulawayo’s film industry say they are optimistic over opportunities that would be brought by digitisation.

They said their meeting with government officials today will shed more light as to how they would make money from digitisation.

Deputy Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Thokozile Mathuthu and the permanent secretary George Charamba are expected to meet artistes, content creators, film industry personnel and aspiring filmmakers today at the Small City Hall.

Local producer Andy Cutta, real name Andy Sobhuza believes there should be a serious drive in capacity building for technical people such as camera persons, sound engineers and editors in order to churn out quality programming.

“There’s a serious shortage of qualified technical people in the country. This will make it difficult for most people to come up with quality programmes that can sustain the six channels. I want to know how they’ll help close that gap,” said Andy Cutta.

“In order for people to watch these channels, their programmes should meet international standards. People have been exposed to DStv and they would want to see the same or even better but with a Zimbabwe twist.

Priscilla Sithole of Bhayiskhopho films, which caters for female producers, said she wanted to know how they would be paid for their content.

“All I’m looking forward from the meeting is how they’ll buy my product. As a producer I want to know if there’s a budget for me and my product.

There’s nothing wrong about the digitalisation, we embrace it, what it should do is to put food on my table,” said Sithole.

“The content is there, it’s stocked up in shelves. I have a lot of feature stories, documentaries and series that I’ve shot. It needs to be shown to people,” said Sithole.

Another producer Raisedon Baya said the meeting should have called for content producers only not every player in the industry.

“The onus is on artists to organise themselves, to speak with one voice. If you are 500 people at different levels, with different needs and aspirations trying to sit down and solve all your problems in one day, the result is chaos,” said Baya.

The digitalisation project started in 2009 and government has since installed transmitters in Plumtree, Beitbridge, St Albert’s in Centenary, Mudzi and Victoria Falls in preparation for the migration.

In addition to that, 10 sites including Harare, Bulawayo, Masvingo, Mutare and Gweru out of the 24 sites for television have been equipped and are now digitally ready.