Bringing Outdoor Movie Culture to Tanzania

Eclectics in Tanzania
Modern Glass Skyscrapers stand alongside older buildings on Dar es Salaams coast in Tanzania

For years, the Open Air Foundation has been assisting organizations in bringing informative media and indigenous cultural productions to marginalized communities around the world. Many more organizations approach us every day asking for even more support. Among them there are some projects that just can't be pulled by a single foundation of our size.

Today we take you to Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world. It is mostly film-makers and NGO people who email us with suggestions on how to educate and empower Tanzanian communities with our outdoor movie technology.

One such enthusiast is Maricky Mvulla, a director and founder of Lukala Organization who is "looking for support to educate my community in rural area in Songea" [nestled in southeastern Tanzania between Malawi and Mozambique].

If you are one of those people like Maricky who is thinking of placing a proposal with some funding agency or just kicking around ideas for crowdfunding to show your latest film to the rural population, please try to imagine how big of an audience you intend to target. And in Tanzania they say 70% of the population do not have access to television. Have no worries about the lack of electricity in some patches of your target area. We have a lot of a great options for alternative power sources (solar, bicycle-powered, etc.).

Stuart Farmer, Open Air Cinema founder, explains, "The biggest issue for rural screenings in Tanzania is dust and dirt - making sure that the air filter in the projector doesn't get too clogged. When we took our equipment to Tanzania, we encountered a lot of dust and red dirt, but we just added a secondary filtration system and it worked just fine."

As for the bicycle-powered equipment, we can send you some literature on it. Please drop us a line here.

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