EARLY LIFE
Schwarbu Emile Kamara was born to Alhaji Mohamed Kamara and Iye Kamara on the 25th of December 1985 in Kenema Municipality, the headquarter town of the Eastern Province. He attended the Kankaylay Islamic Primary School Kenema and continued to the Islamic Secondary School in Kenema. He furthered to the College of Business Studies (CBS) and got a diploma in Business Studies. He proceeded to the College of Management and Administration (COMA) and attained a higher diploma in Business Management. Schwarbu Emile Kamara is engaged and has very beautiful kids.
CAREER
Schwarbu EASTWOOD Kamara is a Cinematographer, film editor, motivational speaker, writer, and filmtastic film facilitator that trains young up-coming filmmakers across the West African Region. He started his journey into the creative industry in 200 with the Nongowa Film Production in Kenema and has since been into it for a period of 17 years.
In 2019, he travelled to Ghana for another film workshop that was hosted in Accra and had a master class training in the below:
Advance camera training (settings and Handling, Composition (Framing, placement, shot size), Camera angles and moving camera techniques, Creative camera work, Sound recording training, Light setting.
In the same year, 2019 he won the National Entertain Award the category of the Best Cinematographer. He also won an award (The Peabody Award) in the USA – 2007, for his organization iEARN while he was volunteering with them on a documentary; and Sierra Leone was the only African Country that partook while the rest of the competitors where from Europe and Asia with 11 countries in the category. Schwarbu has reached a platform that is so magnifying to him and the young he coaches. He started climbing the platform in the year 2006 with iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) a non-governmental organization as a volunteer for 3 years. In 2006, they did a short fictional film on HIV AIDS which gave the organization the opportunity to come in contact and work with a renowned international non-governmental organization from the USA called “Listen Up” Beyond Borders: The title of the project was, “A story from a small planet” where they did a short documentary on child soldiers and he served as the camera operator and editor and that documentary won them the award in 2007.
Early 2008 he worked with a journalist from Canada on a documentary about diamonds in Sierra Leone. They went to the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone, Tongo and that documentary happened to be aired on CNN and the BBC platforms. In 2008 – 2009 he shot the movie ‘Gina’.
In 2012 also, he shot a movie title ‘Hidden Truth’ which was directed by Zachariah Kamara, and won his first Award in 2014. It was organized by Ansev, a Nigerian Marketer based Sierra Leone and won the Best Cinematographer of the year.
In 2017, he got in contact with the Weltfilme Organization, a German based nongovernmental organization that trains young filmmakers to do short films on issues that affect us globally. He was then trained as a filmtastic film trainer on how to do video documentaries in different forms; and he did a short film documentary called “Mayillah The Stoney path” and this documentary won an award in Germany at the Black film festival.
In 2018 he was opportune to travel to Ghana – West Africa on a film workshop as a trainer, and it hosted by YMCA in Adabraka, Accra Ghana. after the film training workshop they did a short film about a girl who got married to a man in a village but still wanted to pursue her education. The short film “Carrying Dreams” was shot and edited by Schwarbu Emile Kamara, and that again won an award in Germany at the Black film festival.
Following that, he was given the opportunity by a renowned based nongovernmental organization – Sierra Leone Adult Education association (SLADEA) to be serving as a facilitator training young coming up filmmakers in the technical area, he teaches them how to operate cameras and also how to edit in a professional way, technically and theoretically. He is certainly on of the best Sierra Leone tutors as a filmtastic filmmaker.
In 2019, he shot a TV series Title “PULL U HAND” ( Hands off our Girls), for the AYV Media Empire. That project was implemented by the first lady of Sierra Leone – Madam Fatima Jabbie Bio, and the project featured renowned Nollywood actors like “Zach Orjie” and a great Nigerian Director Emma Ayalogu together with some Sierra Leonean Directors – Mohamed James Sessy Kamara and Jimmy B of paradise Production. Furtherance to that, Pastor John Afam and his wife, Gloria Afam contracted him be the principal D.O.P for their in 2019 project which made him won the National Entertainment Award (NEA) as Best Cinematographer in Sierra Leone.
Schwarbu recently served as the Director of photography (D.O.P) in a film project (TV series) which was directed by Frank Rajah Arase a Ghanaian base Director for 3 and half months and the titles of the TV series are: “Shadows of the Past” and ‘House of GBAKIMA’. After that, he got contact with Indians to shoot a short film.
FILMOGRAPHY
Shadows of the Past: 2020 (TV series), House of GBAKIMA: 2020(TV series 1&2), Denial: 2020, Pull U Hand: 2019, Carrying dreams: 2019, Redemption: 2019, Mayillah The Stoney path: 2018, The Ashes: January 2016, Family House: June 2015, Temple of Ghost: February 2013, Hidden Truth: 2013, Dangerous Chief: November 2012, Tears of the president: 2012, Return of Gina: July 2012, Gina – October 2011, Child soldier -2007
Documentaries
Carrying Dreams, Mayillah The Stoney path, Diamonds in Sierra Leone, A story from a small planet
AWARDS
Best Cinematographer – 2019 – National Entertain Award. Best Documentary – 2007-The Peabody Award – USA – With iEARN
