What we do
Our work
Everything we do serves the same balance: keeping work, skills and value moving between territories. From hosting shoots to structuring the audiovisual industry, here is what BATAO puts in place on the ground. The model took shape in Senegal; it is designed to roll out territory after territory.
Hosting shoots
The location, the crew, the permit.
Location scouting, connecting productions with technicians, support with permits, logistics. When a production arrives in a territory it does not know, BATAO gives it the time, the contacts and the doors it does not have.
BATAO has hosted more than 65 films in Senegal, from short film to series, both national and international.
Co-production
Building projects together.
Bilateral co-production meetings, such as those linking Senegal and Belgium in Namur and Dakar, and a presence at markets such as the Rencontres de Coproduction Francophone in Luxembourg. We bring together industries that did not cross paths, we share the risks and we open markets.
The 2024 Senegal-Belgium co-production meetings selected six projects, three led from Senegal and three from Belgium, between FIFF Namur and the Dakar Séries festival.
Skills
Exchanging expertise, both ways.
Educ-tours, workshops, masterclasses, training: sound mixing, production, location scouting. Expertise circulates through cross-delegations and visits to locations and technical industries.
Nothing flows in one direction only. What is passed on in Senegal comes back to nourish the Belgian teams, and vice versa. That is the condition for an exchange that lasts.
On the ground
Where the sector meets.
BATAO is present where the sector is made and decided: Saint-Louis Docs, the Ateliers de Grand-Bassam, FIFF Namur, FESPACO, the Liège Comedy Film Festival, Dakar Court.
It is at these gatherings that connections are made, talents are spotted and the following year's co-productions are prepared.
In 2025, this presence extended beyond Senegal: the Ateliers de Grand-Bassam in Côte d'Ivoire, the Rencontres de Coproduction Francophone in Luxembourg, FESPACO in Ouagadougou. So many gateways towards a broader French-language co-production, with Senegal as the anchor point.
Industry
Helping a territory organise its resources.
Location competitions, casting of actors and extras, professional databases. We help territories to list, organise and showcase what they have, so that a production can work there quickly and well.
A legible industry attracts shoots. It is structuring work, discreet but decisive.
