Tanwie Elvis
Tanwie Elvis De dadies
Tanwie Elvis aka De dadies is the third child of a family of four and a native of Nkwen, a career filmmaker, and a certified network administrator with a higher national diploma in project planning and Management. He started his career in filmmaking in June 2005 and commenced as a production assistant and later specialized as a script supervisor ¨continuity¨ during which he focused for five years on a multitude of productions his efforts were recognized at the maiden edition of ACE awards in 2008. During these years he endured as a “script boy”, he acquired other skills down the lane as in script-writing, camera operations (cinematography), lighting, sound and production design through diverse local and international workshops and training organized within and out of the country. Motivated by the quest for more knowledge in the field, he embarked on a self-train six-month course in screenwriting and screen directing which paved the way for his debut as a film writer/ producer/director in 2010. He wrote, produced, and directed his first movie titled ¨Ride my Wrongs ¨ which stars Richard Kings, and Epoule Jeffery, well-known stars today!
Since then, he has taken part in over a hundred audiovisual productions spanning across twenty-three production companies in Cameroon and beyond within his seventeen years as a filmmaker. He signed his name on one of his best features realized in 2017 which marked his 36th film project as a movie director. He smiled at this position as was recognized at the maiden edition of the Red Feather Award as Cameroon’s best director in 2016. He has had multiple nominations and awards nationally and internationally officially crowned Best Film Director 2018 at the Zafaa Awards in London (http://www.zafaa.org), Best Cameroonian Tv Series 2019 at the most prestigious CANAL D’OR award in Cameroon; just a few months after slamming a record of directing the longest Cameroonian film since independence. As a producer, writer, cinematographer, and director, he has been able to achieve a lot over the years. Some of his movies include – Bad Angel (312 episodes series), Night in the grass field, Two Ways, Chasing Tails, The Decision, Canal Trap, and Ride my wrongs (features) just to name a few. Apart from directing fictional narratives, he has also directed a lot of documentary films for local and international organizations including the United Nations Development Program – UNDP, Sight Savers, and the Cameroon Human Rights Commission – CHRC.
Furthermore, he has a rich experience in modeling management rooted as a modeling coordinator for Revelation Bilingual Theater group, co-founder of the “Arabian Nite” modeling and music project in 2005, and project manager for Miss West/University Africa Cameroon 2011/12 with Penjo Entertainment respectively.
Apart from being a filmmaker, he has been a board member as communications officer and web manager of the National Bureau of the Cameroon Film Industry -CFI (2013-2016), he is a member and has been president of the Identification and Re-partition Commission of the society of audio-visual and photography rights of Cameroon – SCAAP since 2018. Also an excellent project manager, writer, backstage manager, event planner, and project developer.
While retaining his director’s chair as a call, he is currently the founder and president of Na level Empire (www.nalevelempire.com) which is an organization that seeks to valorize the African culture through film and documentary production, music, modeling, and other art forms towards community development. The main goal of the organization is to empower, train and expose young talents to community development. Finally, he is currently a student pursuing a professional master’s degree in production and distribution at the University of Yaounde 1 at the same time the Current CEO of Na level Empire Co. Ltd; an audiovisual company that focuses on content creation and major goal to distribute local audio visual content.