Noumo Willy Stephane is that one man who can tell you all about the Cameroon Film Industry, be it from the Francophone or Anglophone region.
He knows these film makers, eats with them on set of movie shoots, travels with them across the country for movie shoots and parties with them at movie premieres. Stephane has the Cameroon movie industry imprinted on his brain. But why isn’t he so public?
Stephane is a Cameroonian TV presenter, producer and film promoter who has founded one of the country’s most popular entertainment TV shows, ‘ON7‘. The show was created back in August 2014 to educate, entertain and showcase the country’s rich and unexplored movie talents to the rest of the world. With correspondents from the USA – Kang Quintus and Claudio Oben – the show quickly became the ‘Pride of Cinema’ in the country feeding its viewers with the best of movie news both home and abroad.
After nearly five years, Stephane says through his show, ON7, there’s been a massive improvement in Cameroon cinema.
“On7 has influenced the growth of the movie industry in Cameroon and has also contributed in the unity of both the Anglophones and Francophones through the integration of film makers in both regions,” Stephane says.
“My show has made French actors to discover and be interested in the film industry in the English speaking region of Cameroon. I can assure you that Francophone filmmakers like Ebenezer Kepombia alias Mitoumba now know names like Jeffrey Epule, Syndy Emade and so many of our movie superstars in Buea and other parts of South West and North West from my show, ON7 … and to me, that’s great,” he adds.
The devoted movie reporter tells us that he chose to air his TV show on the national TV station, Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) because he wanted to bring everyone together and there was no better platform to meet his objective than a media house which can be found at every region of the country.
“ON7” TV show is that one platform on which new films and actors are discovered, loved and appreciated by fans across the nation. It has, for the last few years, been able to promote films for film festivals in and out of Cameroon and has also managed to bring awareness on films and filmmakers abroad to those at home and vise versa.
The show is produced by his company NS Vision Enterprise in collaboration with OMEGA One Entertainment.
Although things have not been too easy, when it comes to production and marketing the popular hit show, Stephane assures us that he’s hopes are high and he would love to stay positive as to the future of his craft.
“The major challenge I face is the lack of support from our Government to the film industry. The way the system works here hinders our growth. I find it impossible to travel far and wide to cover international content and bring back home. We don’t have the government helping us out at international film festivals. Filmmakers do it all by themselves and are still not appreciated by our people at the top. These makes it so difficult for our communities to appreciate our hard work and they sometimes tell us we are wasting our time.. It’s really sad,” Stephane explains.
However, all hope is not lost. The Cameroon International Film Festival (CAMIFF) as a well as Ecrans Noirs Film Festival are some of the platforms filmmakers have to showcase their workmanship and creativity and “we are so happy these festivals are helping in publicizing our films and bringing us all together for greater good,” says the media personality.
“ON7 is showing on CRTV every Sundays at 8:00 PM and Mondays at 3:30 PM.
