South African filmmakers, home from a gay old time at the Cannes film festival, are gloating. It was inevitable after the year they’ve had, jam-packed with an Oscar nomination, a Golden Stallion and a Golden Bear.
For those of us who didn’t make it to Cannes, who couldn’t see Thandiswa Mazwai at the rave A-list party on May 14, life will go on. What we’ve come to accept is that success for the local film industry, and that entails expensive partying abroad, means employment opportunities and cultural development at home.
While the industry celebrated its bumper year in Cannes, in the National Assembly on May 18 Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan lauded its achievements in his budget speech. He called 2004 “the year during which South African film came of age”. He went on to praise the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) for carrying out its mandate in developing “programmes that address empowerment, talent incubation and production funding”. Jordan said the NFVF had delivered on key national priorities — “equity, redress and job creation” as well as “adopting a progressive language policy”.
Much like the Oprah Winfrey show, in a quaint gesture, each member of the minister’s audience was handed a gift: a DVD copy of director Teddy Mattera’s recent movie Max and Mona. A couple of weeks previously, Jordan held a dinner at the Sandton Convention Centre to celebrate local film’s moment in the sun.
Producer Jeremy Nathan, partner in the company DV8/IMG, calls the press hype “irresponsible because it creates expectations that can’t be delivered upon. We should manage both local and international expectations more carefully.”
This is no reflection on the movie industry’s achievements. Rather, it is a word of caution. “The industry is at quite a crucial cutting edge,” Nathan says. “It’s got all the goodwill from the Department of Arts and Culture and from the Department of Trade and Industry. We have to be really responsible to consolidate the incredible foundation that has been built.
“The unprecedented interest is only interest at the moment. South Africa is still only a blip on the international film scene.”
Nathan and company, including Joel Phiri and recently appointed partner Themba Sibeko, are encouraging the government to support the NFVF as much as possible. “The NFVF’s role is crucial in furthering the local and global interest in the film industry.”
Basically, the industry anticipates what is termed a “medium term expenditure framework” review. This will be divulged in September. The wisdom on the ground is that the annual allocation of about R24-million to the NFVF is too little. However, the spate of features that have grabbed the spotlight are as a result of a R35-million boost to the NFVF budget that was used from the years 2002 to 2004. In total 26 features were supported.
“The budget has really been incremental,” NFVF CEO Kalipha Eddie Mbalo says, “rather than looking at what it takes to operate an institution like the NFVF to achieve what it is we are all calling for.”
Mbalo says this year was “the best Cannes we ever had. It was no longer a case of South Africa going out with a begging bowl asking for the international community to consider us. This time around, South Africa was viewed as a potential partner in the development of film around the world.
“Of course, we attribute this to instruments that have been put in place: the incentive schemes, treaties we have signed and the treaty that is under discussion with the United Kingdom.”
Sibeko, former CEO of the Gauteng Film Office, now an equal partner of DV8/IMG, says, “Cannes was heaven — it was great to be on the Côte d’Azure.
“But, as an industry, we’re in a very precarious situation. There’s goodwill, there’s been great exposure internationally. But the crux of the matter is the issue of the well-intended programmes of the government. How they follow through and how they execute them is of real concern. There needs to be a lot more participation in how programmes are rolled out with the private sector, within the film sector. How do we work together to make sure that we support the government’s rollout so that we continue to maintain the momentum? All of a sudden we’ve got this huge spotlight on South Africa and a very small market within the scope of the global market.”
Sibeko, Nathan and Phiri, whose company is responsible for the features Forgiveness, The Flyer and Max and Mona, Straight Outta Benoni and Wah-Wah are looking to the public broadcaster to join in film production as an equal partner.
But, Phiri says, the biggest problem facing the industry is distribution. “Our films haven’t gotten to the right audience. They haven’t worked commercially on the local market. We’ve done huge marketing campaigns–Ster Kinekor has been phenomenal in investing in publicity. But these films haven’t worked because they are not yet reaching their rightful audiences. We hope that the collective activities of distributors, government and the private sector will assist in getting our local films to our audiences.
“There’s a big television audience and we need to get direct access to homes.” He points to Nigeria as a business model where filmmakers have found “alternative ways of getting our films out to the market”.
On a business note, Tom Pictures director Akin Omotoso, whose short film about violence called Rifle Road showed at Cannes, says the festival “is about building partnerships. But the reason we can discuss possibilities is because this place has become more attractive. Omotoso and company are reluctant to talk of future projects but they are working with a UK-based company to produce a film with local content about boxing.
Steven Markowitz, producer of A Boy Called Twist which showed at Cannes says, “Four sales companies want the film. We are now negotiating with them to find the best deal. The film will find a home with a good sales company and will be shown far and wide.”
Camilla Driver of the Dimpho di Kopane company that produced U-Carmen eKayelitsha said, “Business was great. We sold, in total, to twelve territories, including Germany, Australia, Portugal, Thailand, Syria, Sweden, Norway, Benelux, Russia, and Greece.”
Local film is the toast of the planet. Now, all we need is a way of showing it more widely at home.