Diageo, the parent company of Guinness Nigeria Plc, has launched a Pan-African competition to find Africa’s most talented filmmaker for the production of its Guinness Africa Made of More Programme, a global TV commercial for Guinness.

The competition which is open to anyone passionate about film-making underscores Diageo’s pioneering approach to marketing and its belief that some of the richest and untapped creative talent resides in Africa and that talent should be celebrated the world over.

“We believe that Africa is at the forefront of creative innovation and that with this project we are simply providing a platform to showcase that. We want to establish this programme as an on-going initiative and believe that this Guinness project can actively help give African creativity and talent the global stage it deserves,” Diageo Chief Marketing Officer, Andy Fennell said.

Fifteen film makers have been selected from several countries across Africa including Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania and they will showcase the Guinness Made of More theme through compelling stories.

The programme will take place over the next 12 months, during which Diageo will provide mentoring, educational tools and inspiration to encourage young creative talent to bring to life the Guinness ”Made of More” campaign and show through film what it means to them.

A statement released by the company confirmed that grants and bursaries will be offered to help create a viable platform for film-makers to start their productions.

“Ultimately, the project will create opportunities to document how people across the continent set out to find and tell the story of what makes themselves, their community, town, region, country or continent ‘Made of More’,” it said.

Diageo will be working with crowd-sourcing agency, MOFILM to grow local talent and filmmakers with the winning entry funded by Guinness to run on Pan-African media placements.