TIPTOPSTARS

Making Cameroonian movies abroad has been a common activity within the last decade, at least for those who have a penchant for the motion pictures. In quantity and even qualitatively, there has been an upward trend. This has been noticeable. Yet, to say this activity has gone on with few or no guiding principles is staying very close to the truth. This has been the result of filmmakers operating in dispersed ranks. Even when there have been joint projects or call it co-productions, Cameroonian filmmakers in the diaspora have hardly ever converged as an industry to discuss salient issues that could foster a great leap ahead. In the United States, just like in Europe, the scenario has been the same.

However, things may never be the same again, at least in some parts of Europe, especially where filmmaking has gained much ground. This is the case with The Netherlands and Belgium. Cameroonians who make motion pictures a reality in these two countries have vowed to change the phase of the art by getting more professional in a bid to make their works much more appealing. They have also pledged to function like an organized entity, so that filmmaking as an activity can be done with some degree of respect for deontology.

Meeting in the Belgian city of Antwerp recently, the men and women of the seventh art agreed that bringing their resources together and aiming at a common goal was the only way they could catapult the industry to the apex. “We need that unity to be able to reach higher heights,” the coordinator of the session, Titus Banyoh told the assembly.

Also speaking at the meeting, Banyoh, a filmmaker who doubles as journalist hailed his colleagues for making the Antwerp ‘rencontre’ happen, especially when it is generally known that bringing Africans in the diaspora together is herculean. “That’s why I’m going to doff my hat to Simon Timah for his brilliance in publicizing this meeting,” he told attendees.

While looking forward to start preparing a production code, this tip-of-the-iceberg session also discussed issues such as scriptwriting, collaboration, and marketing. Conspicuously present at the meeting were production houses such Great Bridge International, Timah Vision, Spire Entertainment and JEN Entertainment.

It is a little rare for young English-speaking Cameroon musicians to get so deep into painting their country’s political landscape. Most of them would rather duel on softer themes and even if they go the politicking way, it is fashioned in a very subtle manner. This however has not been the case with Mabel Chah aka MabSTAR this time. MabSTAR needs no further introduction – the Afro Hip-Hop/RAP singer is a household name and fast becoming internationally recognized. In a straight-talk-like piece titled Go Vote, MabSTAR has urged young Cameroonians to rise, use the ballot box and turn the tables in her country.

In the now viral single officially released in the past couple of days, MabSTAR, who is coming out stronger, not just as a ‘Preacher Woman’, but as the mouth piece of a seemingly oppressed youth, calls on her generational mates to vote a ‘No’ to the current order. To the singer, her country is on amoving on a wrong foot. “Mon pays vas mal,” MabSTARS states in the 3.23 minutes-long single. The artist who was tenderly two years-old in 1982 laments that a clinching system has been in place since then and there isn’t any reason why a change shouldn’t be necessary.

This system has not changed the situation of her country’s city and village roads, for instance, which the author of Go Vote sarcastically describes as ‘great’. Yet, the power brokers of the said system find pleasure in dancing to all the music and refusing to leave the dancing stage. “We are ready for a change,” the artist declares.

According to MabSTAR (Mabel Fuam), Go Vote is aimed at encouraging civic responsibility especially as Cameroonians brace for twin elections (legislative and municipal) coming up on September 30, 2013. Cameroonians have generally resorted to voter apathy for within the past decade following endless claims that elections are usually flawed by irregularities including disenfranchisement.

Meantime, MabSTAR rose to stardom in 2007 when BAAM, a popular Buea-based band which won the maiden edition of the Nestle national music competition, then emerged first at All-African contest in Cote d’Ivoire. This fetched the band a Paris recording of Stand Up a single produced by English producer and artist Wayne Beckford and valorized on the inter-continental entertainment TV channel TRACE. Apart from being instrumental in the unforgettable “Stand Up for Haiti” fund raiser in honour of victims of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, MabSTAR has toured with her country’s Minister of Culture on behalf of women empowerment initiatives. She is widely traveled - to Morocco, Algeria, Ghana, Niger, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo.

If there is one thing one should not afford to lack, it is DREAM. Most often than not, when you dream, the tendency is for you to rise and see this dream come true. If this is coated with Faith, there is no doubt that the end result will be delicious. This assertion best describes the young people whose efforts have been brought to the limelight through The HillTopians, Cameroon’s latest publication on the country’s ever-swelling newsstand.

“We have nursed The HillTopians magazine dream for four months and I can only say I feel fulfilled after its final release,” Fri Ngu aka Frisha Gold told TIPTOPSTARS on the heels of the launch of the magazine. “I feel like I just gave birth to a baby,” the Yaounde-based Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of The HillTopians explained further.

According to the HillTopians EIC, the publication has come to provide the answer to several questions on the lives of Christian youths, most of whom are talented and possess unexplored skills. “We think that we can create an impact on such youths beyond the walls of the Church and The HillTopians could just be that much-desired avenue,” said the EIC.

Published and run by the Yaounde Hill-Top Faith Ministries International, The HillTopians is a published in colour with four writers filling the columns so far – Frishs Gold Ngu, Bennis Nchang, Bob Zionson and Chi Valery.

Designed d by DURELLA CONCEPTS, the 18-paged maiden issue of The HillTopians has the spiritual leader of the Yaounde Hill-Top Faith Ministries, Rev, Steve Olatunde Abolarin and wife Olatunde Eleanor Nagwah as cover stars. It also carries an exclusive interview with the former.  You may just like to know ‘Mama’s seven secrets to mental bliss’, then procure a copy of the maiden issue in which you would also read about the Cameroon-FIFA ‘palaver’ which fortunately is being resolved in a reasonable manner. These and more are the professionally-crafted and packaged write-ups that enrich The HillTopians No 1.

According to EIC, The HillTopians will hit the newsstands every month but for now is only circulating within Cameroon.

Known for her extra-ordinary drive, The HillTopians Editor-in-Chief, Frisha Gold Ngu is also a fine film scriptwriter and freelance daily-life freelance commentator whose works, regularly published on the social media network, Facebook have attracted wide admiration. On his part the spiritual leader of Hill-Top Faith Ministries International and publishers of The HillTopians, Rev. Steve Olatunde is well reputed for his efforts in making talented youths productive and useful to their community. He is a motivational speaker par excellence and from time to time organizes forums where youths are drilled on how to explore God-given skills. This latest initiative only comes to make the Cameroonian print media landscape a publication richer.