The Inaugural edition of the Journey Home Film Festival and the Liberia Film Awards Filmmaking Mixer for the first time brought together prominent film directors to tackle the critical challenges facing the nation’s film industry.
The event forms a part of a new bi-monthly filmmaking series aimed at providing film industry professionals with a platform to collaborate, learn, and address the pressing issues impacting the craft and the industry.
During the filmmaking mixer, prominent film directors, Luther M. Fafallah, Murphy Duwana (stand-in for Dir. Mamadee S. Sannoh) and Gardeon Mayson, shared candid insights on the state of Liberian filmmaking today, highlighting the progress made as a result of the Journey Home Film Festival, discussing areas in need of improvement, and offering solutions to elevate films to international standards.
Film Director Luther M. Fafallah, a respected figure in the industry, emphasized the stark differences between Liberian films and those produced internationally, attributing the gap primarily to the lack of quality of production and post-production processes and the know how factor.
“Many Liberian filmmakers produce films haphazardly, without a clear plan for pre- or post-production, leading to films that fall short of their potential,” Fafallah remarked. He also noted the ongoing efforts by the University of Liberia to develop such initiatives and discussed his effort to develop a curriculum for filmmaking and film festival applications.
Meanwhile, Murphy Duwana, a new director, whose film house, under the direction of Mamadee S. Sannoh, has taken home three film awards from the Liberia Film Awards, pointed out that many filmmakers simply fail to treat filmmaking as a business.
“Investing just $100 in a film cannot yield the same results as a project with a budget exceeding $1, 000,” Duwana stated.
He praised the Journey Home Film Festival and the Liberian Film Awards for fostering a competitive environment to encourage filmmakers to improve, despite the fear of judgment that holds some back.
Adding to the poor film quality of Liberian productions is the lack of proper budgeting and film distribution plans, as highlighted by seasoned film director Gardeon Mayon.
He noted that Liberian filmmakers often overlook their audiences, who are increasingly sophisticated because of their exposure to international films.
“My goal has been to find 60 films for a DSTV channel that specifically features Liberian stories. We kept reducing that number of films because we just couldn’t find any that met international standards. We saw that filmmakers kept making the same mistakes, and this is a result of lack of poor knowledge of filmmaking, budgeting, networking, and collaboration,” he said.
Veteran Film Director and ace cinematographer, Alexander Wiaplah, known as Ush, began his 20 -year filmmaking journey in Logan Town.
He believes some filmmakers lack confidence in themselves, see more senior filmmakers as competition, or are afraid of criticism.
“Many just don’t understand the script to screen process but we are here to support filmmakers, even those women in the industry, they must reach out,” he said.
The Liberia Movie Union’s Board Chairman, John Ballout, acknowledged filmmaker’s challenges, but said that film industry professionals must be realistic as to where Liberia is on a scale of 1 to 10 in comparison to films on the international stage.
“We have to be honest, Liberian films rank between 2 and 2.5. To improve our film quality, we must now broaden our film circle so we can produce quality films,” he said.
According to Mr. Ballout, broadening Liberia’s film circle means undertaking partnerships for film financing, sponsorships, product placements, marketing, and copywriting.
He said that collaborations with the Writer’s Association is equally as important.
As the Journey Home Film Festival and the Liberian Film Awards Filmmaking Mixers continue, key aspects of filmmaking, including budgeting, production quality, post-production, and distribution strategies will be discussed to equip Liberian film industry professionals with the knowledge and connections they need to compete globally.
The Journey Home Film Festival and the Liberia Film Awards Filmmaking Mixer series continues bi-monthly until June 2025.
