Racial divisions are emerging within the community of screenwriters in South Africa’s major film industry centres.
Speaking during the annual general meeting of the South African Screenwriters’ Association (Saswa) held in Johannesburg recently, Saswa’s Cape chapel chair and respected film-maker Dermod Judge indicated that efforts to recruit ”black and brown faces” into Saswa had not been successful.
”In Cape Town, we continue to talk to potential scriptwriters in the townships … We are also in regular contact with the Black Film and Video Association (BFVA). None of these efforts, I’m afraid, have come to light. It [Saswa] is still too white, and I believe we must discuss this at national level,” Judge told the gathering, comprising mostly white screenwriters.
Saswa’s newly elected chair, Brent Quinn, and his predecessor, Etienne van Heerden, are known to hold strong views on the need to transform, especially the leadership of the organisation, into a structure representative of the demographics of the country.
The Cape Town-based 115-member BFVA was somewhat evasive over the issue of race in a recent, rather carefully worded, interview.
Quinn said during a recent Saswa council meeting he was of the opinion the association needed to work harder in its efforts to attract both established and aspirant screenwriters into its ranks.
According to statistics made available by the Saswa secretariat in Johannesburg, the association’s membership is only about 35% black.
Sources in the secretariat said the newly elected Saswa council has been increased from eight to 14 individuals, a move that has upped black representation from two to five individuals. But independent sources observe that the organisation still has to attract into its ranks established, if not prominent, black screenwriters such as the celebrated Teboho Mahlatsi, let alone black females such as Palesa Letlaka-Nkosi.
Also, the sources say some black film-makers in Gauteng are organising themselves into a separate grouping, because of a reluctance to throw in their lot with Saswa.
”I have been told by at least two of the black writers that they were unhappy with the pace of transformation in the film and TV industry,” the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. ”They maintain black screenwriters should first organise themselves into a strong structure before they could consider unity talks with Saswa and other interested parties.”
However, the Saswa secretariat believes recent screenwriting workshops co-ordinated by the association and conducted by film teacher Leon van Nierop and Briton Albie James, had triggered a lot of interest in Saswa from, in particular, black screenwriters.
In a carefully worded interview, BFVA chairman Sifiso Ndlazi dismissed suggestions that his organisation was aimed at exclusively championing the aspirations of black film-makers.
”We are not exclusively black. The BFVA is a non-racial association with the specific purpose of addressing imbalances of the past in a pro-active and positive way. We are not demanding quotas. All we are striving for is an environment for meaningful black participation,” Ndlazi explained.
When asked if white film-makers were welcome at the BFVA, Ndlazi retorted: ”We have an open-door policy … as long as they [whites] subscribe to our constitution, that of addressing the imbalances.” The whites, he said, were required to participate in the BFVA ”in a pro-active and positive manner”.
He admitted that the idea of the BFVA was inspired by the now defunct and then Gauteng-based Black Filmmakers Association (BFA), and went to great pains to shoot down comparisons between the aims and objectives of the two.
Ndlazi said while the BFA had to compromise and close down at the time of the formation of the Independent Producers’ Organisation (IPO), the BFVA would rather encourage individual members to throw in their lot with the IPO. ”We are in discussions on ways of how to complement each other.”
He said the BFVA was not only in contact with the IPO, but such other stakeholders as Saswa.
Ndlazi said the BFVA was to go on a road-show next year, to set up structures in other provinces, specifically Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the North West Province where, he said, certain individuals had approached the BFVA. ”[So] in a sense we do have a national appeal,” he said.
Ndlazi is himself a film-maker who has suspended his own career and works as full-time chair, in order to avoid ”a conflict of interests”.
The BFVA will, in the latter three provinces, sell its manifesto, which describes itself as an association ”made mainly of people from historically oppressed communities, [which] intends to become a mainstream production and economic stakeholder in the film and television industry in a pro-active and positive way”.
The manifesto further argues that the rationale for the BFVA formation was necessitated by the fact that persons from historically oppressed communities had, in the past, been prevented from the political, social and economic mainstream. ”The film and television industry – which has traditionally been a white domain – remains out of reach of black people.” This was particularly the case in the Western Cape, a province the BFVA said serviced 57% of international work.
”The Western Cape generates in excess of R300-million a year, but not a single black person or group significantly benefits from it. We are also not aware that the situation is significantly different nationally,” the manifesto explained.
The BFVA claimed, however, to have made significant headway on other fronts, such as placing the need for training and development on the agenda.
”However, it is in the actual production of programming that no real inroads have been made, in spite of common understanding that it needs to happen,” the manifesto explained.