The German premiere of Something Necessary took place in Berlin last week – a film that was the result of one of DW Akademie’s One Fine Day Film Workshop. Something Necessary shows an intimate moment in the life of Anne, a woman struggling to rebuild her life after the civil unrest that swept Kenya after the 2007 elections claiming the life of her husband, the health of her son and leaving her home on an isolated farm in the Kenyan countryside in ruins.

Following Nairobi Half Life, this was the second film resulted from the One Fine Day Film Workshop – a joint project by DW Akademie, One Fine Day Films and Ginger Ink. The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Film und Medienstiftung NRW, the Goethe-Institut Kenya and ARRI Film & TV Services.

One Fine Day Films is an alternative film production company founded by Marie Steinmann and Tom Tykwer.

Applications being accepted for new workshop

The next workshop gets underway in Kenya this September. Starting now, African directors, camera operators, editors, scriptwriters, sound engineers and production designers can apply for this intense two-week workshop. Deadline for applications is May 1.

For half a century, DW has been broadcasting reliable news and information in Kiswahili to listeners in Eastern Africa and the Great Lakes region. DW celebrated this anniversary today with an event in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, by bringing opinion leaders together for a discussion on “Knowledge and Awareness through Media”. Keynotes were held by the German Ambassador, Klaus-Peter Brandes and Andrea Schmidt, head of DW’s Kiswahili Service.

“The majority of our listeners live here in Tanzania so it was an obvious choice for our celebration,” said Andrea Schmidt. “For the last 50 years, DW has been committed to providing balanced news and reliable information, offering people in East Africa insights and detailed analysis on the issues that matter most.”

The panel discussion at the event was organized with the help of GIZ in Dar es Salaam and moderated by DW’s Mohammed Khelef. Participants included distinguished Tanzanian media professionals likeAssah Andrew Mwambene (Director of Tanzania Information Services / Maelezo), Mohamed Abdulrahman (DW), Jenerali Ulimwengu (journalist), Valerie Msoka (Director of TAMWA) and Maggid Mjengwa (social media expert).

DW’s Kiswahili Service broadcasts daily three hours to East Africa and the Great Lakes region. By working with partner stations throughout the region, DW is able to provide listeners via FM balanced coverage of what is going on in the world in general and in Africa in particular. To provide this international perspective, a team of journalists from five African countries works together with a network of correspondents. Kiswahili programming is one of the most popular that DW offers. DW has integrated award-winning educational content with Learning by Ear and a huge variety of features covering health, human rights, environment, women and development, youth and lifestyle and culture.

Deutsche Welle (DW) is making its Learning by Ear service even more accessible to listeners in Afghanistan by providing content to mobiles with partner Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC). With more than 17 million mobile phone owners in Afghanistan, the cooperation with AWCC will help to expand the reach of DW’s hit educational program.

“This new service appeals to a younger, more mobile target audience,” says Anne Hufnagel, Head of Distribution for Asia at DW. “We expect and are looking forward to a significant increase in the number of listeners.”

Mobile users in Afghanistan just have to dial 1020 which will take them to an audio menu. They will then have the choice to listen to the Learning by Ear episodes in either Dari or Pashto on-demand. The service is free of charge and currently offers 10 episodes of “Becoming Afghanistan’s Superstar”, a program that showcases the extraordinary story about a young girl who struggles to participate in Afghanistan’s song contest.

Learning by Ear has been broadcast with support from the German Federal Foreign Office in Afghanistan since 2009. With partners like Ariana Radio and Radio Nawa, the series has become popular for young adults and teens. The new Learning by Ear mobile service will be promoted through a text message campaign, print ads and daily spots on television and radio.

DW’s show World Stories is celebrating one year on-air today. So far, the program has featured more than 340 reports about places, people and issues across the globe. World Stories was developed as a unique way to highlight the local issues in a globalized world. Collaborating with its premium international partners, World Stories features their best and most captivating stories. Journalists from around the world share their view of their home country and continent, their people, and their issues.

The program features stories from 69 contributors in 48 different countries – just check out our interactive map to see where. One of the contributing stations is CTV from Cantebury, New Zealand. CTV’s headquarters was completely destroyed in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, but CTV has now risen from the rubble and is a regular contributor to World Stories. Or what about the Romanian station TVR. Over the past 12 months, they’ve been bringing us some fascinating reports about Romanian culture and lifestyle.

The magazine focuses on people and the interesting stories they have to tell. World Stories offers news, reports and portraits on all facets of life that give new insights on how things are done differently around the globe. It is widening horizons, for instance by showing how the city of Hong Kong plays an essential role in China’s rapid economic growth, through the eyes of a local business entrepreneur.

DW’s blog and social media awards has relaunched its website with a new look and a new logo. The Bobs – Best of online activism – has been recognizing the best independent bloggers and citizen journalists since 2004 and is just one way that DW contributes to promoting freedom of expression and the upholding of human rights around the world. This year, the contest has added three additional languages – Hindi, Turkish and Ukrainian – opening the contest’s categories to a total of 14 languages.

Find out more at thebobs.com