8,500 kilometers separate two worlds – a film festival brings them together. Young Malagasy and German filmmakers meet and discover a great thing in common: the love of film.

In Madagascar – an island as big as France and Luxembourg put together – there exists only one film festival. The RFC (Rencountres du Film Court de Madagascar) is not only a platform for encounters between filmmakers, it´s also an opportunity for young people to learn about film. Over 9 days in 2015 a great variety of films from Madagascar and all over the world were screened alongside a broad program of workshops and lectures by international experts. Thus, the RFC provides significant resources to an emerging film community in an area of the world which does not currently have any film schools.

Last year, an exchange between the Animation Class of the School of Art and Design Kassel and the RFC was arranged with the assistance of the Federal Foreign Office. The Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival presented in cooperation with the Afrikamera Festival two programs with current short and animated films from Africa to encourage an exchange between filmmakers and teachers from Germany and the African countries. Three filmmakers and the director of the RFC came to Kassel and produced the workshop film DREAMS in cooperation with students from the Animation Class. Six months later, two students from Kassel and their class leader were invited to come to Madagascar and take part in the RFC. There a second workshop film on the topic of market (ZOMA) was created in collaboration between the Malagasy and German animators.

Two educating institutions – two encounters – two workshop films, that include some of the best current Malagasy shorts. This is a significant achievement as professional film production has only recently become possible again in Madagascar, a country still recovering from an autocratic governmental regime in which there is not one cinema and almost no cultural funding. Against this background, a group of young filmmakers is in the process of reinventing their own film industry, whilst also opening up an inside view of Malagasy life to the world.

All four films have one thing in common: their subtle reflection on everyday life and universal experience.

With this small but talented film industry beginning to flower, work on building the country's first cinema in Antananarivo has begun and is well underway. Although it is still awaiting its seating to be delivered and installed, the passion for film has already arrived.