British Council’s Creative Enterprise Support Programme to train film entrepreneurs

British Council Ghana in collaboration with The First Creatives, Henley Business School (UK) and Afrinolly Creative Hub (Nigeria) have launched the Creative Enterprise Support Programme to deliver training, mentoring and support the business development of young and emerging film entrepreneurs in Accra, Ghana.
Ghana’s creative industry is a rapidly growing economic powerhouse that is increasingly being recognized as a pathway for sustainable livelihoods for young people across art forms including film.
The creative industry, however, is faced with the obstacles of weak policy support, lack of infrastructure, weak skills base, low levels of awareness of the livelihood opportunities that exist within the sectors and limited opportunities for networking, collaborations, and skills-sharing.
Speaking at the event which happened at The British Council on Monday, February 17, Jay Engmann of The First Creatives disclosed that his team was building an agency that will make movies that can cross over.
“To give you a background of why we decided to build the studio, we were doing one of our movies which has a lot of commercial potentials but we were told we will have to wait for four years in order to shoot in a 21st Century studio. So, we decided to create our own studio and content so we can start owning our narrative and content. “

Through this programme The British Council aims to ensure film entrepreneurs in Accra, Ghana is supported to develop knowledge, skills and relevant networks aimed at building sustainable livelihoods. We also hope to increase collaboration and partnerships within West Africa and between Ghana and the UK, to support the film ecosystem.
“As a creative going into the film business to make music that commercially successful it’s necessary you learn the various aspects and part of this programme is reading a curriculum that dissects each of these stages down to its core which includes developing, conceptualization, story structuring, these are some of the topics we will be exploring to give them the ability to create something which is appealing for the local market and authentic African stories that can still be break into the global markets because it meets the standards and rules.” Mieke Turkson, Head Project Manager of The First Creatives added.
This programme is delivered by The First Creatives (Ghana), Henley Business School (UK) and Afrinolly Creative Hub (Nigeria) and is comprised of three stages of joint provided enterprise support:
Stage 1: Enterprise Support
A two-week intensive training for 60 film entrepreneurs to include artistic, technical and enterprise training tailored to the needs of the local sector.
Stage 2: Incubation
A 6-month incubation programme for 30 selected film entrepreneurs from stage 1, providing access to workspace, access to equipment within the workspace (e.g. for producing new work, filming, editing etc.), training, business support and mentoring.
Stage 3: Pitch for Grants
This will be an opportunity for film entrepreneurs from stage 2 of the programme to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. There will be grants for 5 film entrepreneurs to develop business plans, start/scale-up existing businesses or produce new film projects in Ghana.
The programme started on February 7^th and trainees will pitch their projects in August.
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