The Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (French:
Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes), abbreviated as FEPACI, was founded in 1969 by a provisional committee at the inaugural
Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), and officially established in 1970 in
Tunis, at the
Carthage Film Festival. A document called "The Algiers Charter" was adopted during a symposium of African filmmakers organised by the Cinémathèque algérienne in the Ibn Khaldoun cinema in July 1969. Here pioneering filmmakers such as
Paulin Soumanou Vieyra,
Ousmane Sembène, and
Mahama Johnson Traoré played leading roles. Others at the symposium included
Youssef Chahine (Egypt),
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (Algeria),
Desiré Ecaré (Ivory Coast),
Ahmed Rachedi (Algeria), and
Lionel Ngakane (South Africa). The group called for the creation of an organisation representing African filmmakers as well as a Pan-African film festival. Algerian director
Tahar Cheriaa, who was in prison at the time, was released after an international appeal started by the 40 African filmmakers. The Algiers Charter was later affirmed in Cheriaa's presence in Tunis in 1970, on the occasion of a foundational congress. In April 2006, FEPACI, under secretary general Jacques Behanzin, collaborated with the South African
Department of Arts and Culture and the
National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) of South Africa to host the first African Film Summit in the
Tshwane,
Gauteng, South Africa. The summit arose from calls by many in the industry to create an African commission on the audiovisual and cinema industries and a fund to promote the African cinema industry and television programmes. Many representatives of industry-related organisations, such as the Guild of African Directors and the East African Filmmakers Forum, and government statutory bodies, such as the
Nigerian Film Corporation, took part in panel discussions at the summit. After the summit, a FEPACI Congress took place in Tshwane, at which, for the first time in its history, members voted that while FEPACI headquarters should remain based in Ouagadougou, the FEPACI Secretariat would be based in South Africa from 2006 to 2010, under the leadership of South African Secretary General Seipati Bulane Hopa. On 7 June 2017, a letter of agreement was signed among FEPACI,
UNESCO, and American director
Martin Scorsese's
Film Foundation World Cinema Project, to formalise their partnership on the
African Film Heritage Project, which has as its mission the preservation of African cinema. ==Description==