The AfroCine Project

The AfroCine Project is a multi-country, multi-faceted WikiProject which aims to encourage the contribution of content that relates to the historical and contemporary cinema, theatre, and arts sectors of several African countries, the Caribbean and the diaspora to Wikimedia projects.

Vision

"To bridge the huge content gap and improve on the systemic bias, in respect of the African continent, by getting real African stories and viewpoints into the mainstream. This will be achieved by making: articles, citations, images, videos, and data, about the historical and contemporary African cinema, theatre and arts, to be readily available and easily accessible, both online and offline, and in different languages."

Overview

The Entertainment Industry in Africa is huge; the Nigerian cinema is currently ranked as the third largest film industry in the world, in terms of revenue and production output. Other major film industries in Africa include the cinemas of: Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt. All of these very active film industries are poorly represented on Wikipedia, as the available information about them is very scanty and difficult to access. The AfroCine Project aims to fix this problem.

Focus include variety of interests, such as: Contemporary cinema articles, Cinema history articles, biographies of relevant personalities (especially women), film articles, film archives, archives of relevant publications about African films and filmmaking, images of relevant subjects and personalities, etc. This is achieved through varying methods, such as GLAMs; editing workshops, writing and upload contests, partnerships with relevant organizations and Government ministries, activating Wikipedians-In-Residence (WIR) in libraries of film schools and institutions, and so on, using the help of existing communities/affiliates in Africa and beyond. This project is designed to use cinema to help bridge the content gap on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia and Open projects, as well as to improve on the awareness of these projects and the overall movement in African countries.

The AfroCine Project was kickstarted in March 2018, by Sam Oyeyele, and the project has gone on to make major impacts within the Wikimedia movement and the open movement in general over the years. The most popular AfroCine activity is the annual Months of African Cinema Global Contest.

Key highlights over three years...

• Over 10,000 quality articles created...
• Over 25 Wikipedia languages impacted...
• Outreach events organized in about 15 countries...
• About 500 quality images uploaded to commons...

Core team

• Sam Oyeyele – Founder / Project Lead (2018 – present)
• Eben Mlay – Community Liaison (2020 – present)
• Ayo Odedere – Contest Facilitation (2020 – present)

Members

Please list your name, if interested in participating in this WikiProject, and if you are already involved in African cinema projects/contributions.

User	Related work/affiliate	Country
Sam/Jamie Tubers	Founder member of Nigerian User Group, contributor to Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc...Keen interest on African cinema.	Nigeria
Gaurav Jhammat	active member of Punjabi community / translation efforts/ i already write about Indian and Asian Cinema etc.	India
Wikilover90	active member of Punjabi community / into outreach and organizing for Punjabi Wikipedia/	India
Justice Okai-Allotey	active member of Wikimedia Ghana User Group / I write about people in arts, culture, music, politics, women and entertainment mainly/	Ghana
HandsomeBoy	Coordinator, WikiProject Nigeria and Wikimedia hub, Ibadan	Nigeria
Daniel	Volunteer editor	Nigeria
Reem Al-Kashif	Researcher, editor, co-founder of Wikimedia Egypt. I love this idea! Would like to participate and/or organize activities.	Egypt
Houssem Abida	Volunteer contributor in Arabic, English and French	Tunisia
Tochiprecious	Co-founder, member of Igbo Wikimedia User Group, translator, contributor to Igbo Wikipedia, Commons, Wiktionary, etc... I would be glad to be a part of this.	Nigeria
Geugeor	Co-founder, member of Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group, Wikimedian in residence Wiki Loves Women, contributor to French Wikipedia, Commons.	Cameroon
TereseB	active member of Wikimedia Ghana User Group	Ghana
Great11	active member of Wikimedia Algeria User Group, Co-founder Wikimedia Tamazight User Group	Algeria
Uzoma Ozurumba	Co-founder, member of Igbo Wikimedia Usergroup, etc... .	Nigeria
Egbe Eugene	Volunteer developer/editor, active member of Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group.	Cameroon
Rajeeb Dutta	active member of West Bengal Wikimedia Community / translation efforts/ I write about people in arts, culture, music, sports and in entertainment world.	India
MassiveEartha	AfroCROWD UK	United Kingdom
CouerDePaix	World-cinemaphile. Volunteer writer/editor	United States of America
Camelia	Editor in itwiki, rowiki and enwiki, translator, co-founder of WikiDonne User Group. Project page.	Italy
Heathart	Co-founder of Black Lunch Table (Visual arts of the African diaspora), Volunteer editor.	United States of America
SuperSwift	Founder and Coordinator, Wikimedia Fan Club Ekiti State University; Volunteer editor.	Nigeria
Joy Agyepong	Administrative Executive, Open Foundation West Africa; active editor with much interest in projecting contents related to Africa.	Ghana
Adefanike	Coordinator, Wikimedia Fan Club University of Ibadan; Volunteer editor on En and Yo Wikipedia.	Nigeria
Jalu	Administrator in eswiki, founder of Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia, former Board Member of Wikimedia Argentina. Mes del cine africano, Mes del cine africano II, Mes del cine Africano III, Mes del cine africano IV, and Wikiquote Spanish Mes del Cine Africano.	Argentina
Fawaz.tairou	Co-founder, member of Wikimédiens du Bénin User Group.	Benin
Christina	Contributor to Wikipedia with an avid interest in African cinema, blog writer and augmenter of Nollywood content.	Nigeria
Proyezu	A Wikipedia editor and a member of Wikimedia community user group Rwanda.	Rwanda
Letoiledusahara	Volunteer researcher and contributor in Arabic, English and French	Egypt
BalukuBrian	member of Wiki Uganda and I actively contribute on Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata. I love contributing about African history, personalities, arts, music, cinema and environment, places	Uganda

Organizations/Affiliates

Please list your affiliate or organization, if interested in running projects that are aligned with African cinema, or if you are already involved in African cinema projects.

1. AfroCROWD
2. AfroCROWD UK
3. Black Lunch Table
4. Wikimedia Ghana User Group
5. Wikimedia hub, Ibadan. Members of my hub will be adding images to Nigerian films in the month of July/August as part of our quarterly projects.
6. Kiwix: The offline reader, bringing internet content to people without internet access
7. WikiDonne User Group
8. Global Voices Sub-Saharan Africa
9. Open Foundation West Africa
10. Wiki In Africa through the Wiki Loves Women project
11. Wikimedia Israel
12. Wikimedia ZA
13. Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia
14. Wikimedia Community User Group Tchad
15. Wikimédiens du Bénin User Group
16. Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda