As the country commemorates Chilembwe Day today, award-winning filmmaker Shemu Joyah said Tuesday that he is dedicated to tell his comprehensive story in a movie as part of preserving the country’s history.
Joyah has for years been attempting to put on the market Chilembwe’s movie but has failed to advance due to lack of funds.
Last year the filmmaker, creator of films such as The Last Fishing Boat and Seasons of A Life, made a huge step towards the creation of Chilembwe movie when he released a short film titled Strike A Blow and Die with funding from Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) through Copyright Fund.
The short film is a rough cut of the feature film but it earned Joyah a nomination in the category of Best Short Film in the 2024 Africa Movie Academy Awards (Amaa).
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“After doing the short film last year, I put it on a private link which I sent to one of the people in United Kingdom who has been very supportive of the project. He was very impressed with it and now, we are in the process of preparing a proper pitch package,” Joyah said.
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He added: “We are going to submit to the people we are targeting in Scotland. We are also targeting some people in the United States of America. Preparing the pitch is my main task at the beginning of this year.”
Last year Joyah revealed that the budget for a full feature film for Chilembwe film is US$3.5million approximately K6 billion.
He said then that FirstDawn Arts is working with three budgets for the film curated in US dollars.
“If we are going to do it the way we want it done, US$3.5 million is the first budget with the current rate.
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“This is a lot of money but those who understand filmmaking for instance Hollywood and other countries, who are advanced in film, this is nothing but here it will be seen as huge amount which cannot be wasted on a film,” the veteran filmmaker said.
He said they were also looking at how the budget can be trimmed to US$ 2 million.
“We might also be able to do it with US$ 1.5 million. The thing is we do not want to compromise on quality,” Joyah said.
He said it is important to document the story of Chilembwe, a Baptist pastor, educator and revolutionary who trained as a minister in USA, returning to Nyasaland now Malawi in 1901.
Chilembwe was an early figure in the resistance to colonialism, opposing both the treatment of Africans working in agriculture on European-owned plantations and the colonial government’s failure to promote the social and political advancement of Africans.
