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.
- AfroCROWD
- AfroCROWD UK
- Black Lunch Table
- Wikimedia Ghana User Group
- 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.
- Kiwix: The offline reader, bringing internet content to people without internet access
- WikiDonne User Group
- Global Voices Sub-Saharan Africa
- Open Foundation West Africa
- Wiki In Africa through the Wiki Loves Women project
- Wikimedia Israel
- Wikimedia ZA
- Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia
- Wikimedia Community User Group Tchad
- Wikimédiens du Bénin User Group
- Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda