By Yero S. Bah
Mr. Ousman Ceesay, a young Gambian filmmaker-cum-photographer is the proprietor of ‘Rise and Shine Media’ located in Kuloro village, Kombo East in West Coast Region (WCR), providing services to various clients including the hard-of-hearing and the visually-impaired persons in the country.
The unique part of his business, as he told Mansa Banko Online via telephone interview on December 15, is that they are telling more of life-changing stories centering on educational issues affecting people in society. That their services are inclusive, in that they offer services to all people regardless of their status or location.
Ceesay told this medium his inspiration came following a two-week film training he attended, organized by the Volunteers Network Organization (VolNet) under the leadership of the Christian Wienert Ferdinand Carrier, Mr. Babucarr Etu Ndow and Isatou Keita.
“I decided to move on with the craft as a career but professionally, I am a qualified teacher too, from the Gambia College in Brikama Campus,” the Primary School teacher with eight years’ experience, recounted to this medium. Ceesay explained that he used the YouTube platform to further develop himself as well as continuing his training with German Filmmakers and partners.
“Funds were dreams at the beginning of the creation of my business, but I was lucky to have some support from Volunteers Network Organization (VolNet) in the form of materials like laptops and camera for a startup,” the Rise and Shine Media chief pointed out.
Ceesay expressed his profound gratitude to one Muhammed Lamin Touray alias ML, and Ms. Angèle Diabang (a Senegalese Screenwriter, Director and Film producer) for the crucial role they played in the furtherance of his career. He acknowledged the duo had made “a greater impact in my career. I can’t do an interview without mentioning their names”.
Like many, the Gambian filmmaker didn’t escape the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic. He pointed to the fact that, the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has come to create wreck in the lives of people and their businesses. He attested that it’s very hard as a freelance filmmaker to thrive in this coronavirus situation because there was no market and everyone was careful in spending money, and consequently, they (filmmakers) were not hired.
Expanding on the challenges, he reminded that restrictions were put in place to curb Covid-19, and that has negative effects on many freelance filmmakers and photographers, including Ceesay himself.
Dilating on his filmmaking venture, the Rise and Shine chief disclosed that the business has impacted his life, especially financially, compared to his former teaching profession. But he believed the most important thing in the entire issue “is the pool of knowledge” he was able to gather and get exposed to in filmmaking. He added that film documentary exposes him to things he could never imagine as he acknowledged that photography is also another educative field and believes that it improves thinking and helps in seeing things differently. “I called my vision the Eagle Photographer,” he stated. Ceesay, however, pointed out that Gambian photographic industry is complex in the sense that one needs a connection to explore with hard work to get benefits at the end.
To him, the most challenging thing about their industry in this country is lack of proper organization, alleging that all the registered organizations asking people to registered are just ‘booby traps’ as there are no developments in the industry. Another challenge he cited is that they fault check [find fault in] each other’s work, and [there are] no realistic criticisms from colleagues.
Opining that most of them are in the industry just for fame than being crafters, the videographer charged with such “improper productions”, no one would be ready to invest their money in the industry. He, however, admitted that some Gambian filmmakers have made it to the international level, describing them as “blockbusters”.
Ceesay outlined their services at Rise and Shine as filming, editing, photography, concept development, documentary production, drama production, commercial video production and photographing of weddings and christening ceremonies.
