SDI Stories

My town, My Life, My Lens, Our Stories! - a film training program designed for upcoming and mid-level filmmakers, designed by Docubox–EADFF in collaboration with SDI - the Scottish Documentary Institute, led by Noe Mendelle. This project’s plan was to reach Eastern African filmmakers in previously less supported towns outside the capital cities, to bring fresh and new voices to the Eastern Africa film industry. It gave filmmakers from these towns the rare chance for film training, opportunities that previously had been concentrated in the capital cities.
After the pilot phase in Kenya in 2021, the program expanded regionally based on these principles, allowing filmmakers from the periphery to share their unique stories with the rest of the world. We selected 9 filmmakers (2 females and 7 males) from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.
We also incorporated, at workshop level, two teams (Ochieng Oneko from Kenya and Matt Bish from Uganda—both from our 2022 Docubox Short Documentary Grantees) who needed support to refine and strengthen their stories. The final list also included a filmmaker from Rwanda.