The Sithengi Film and Television Market has left a bitter taste in the mouths of some filmmakers and directors, who say the pitching sessions, for which they had invested time and money to attend, had effectively been hijacked by the SABC.
Pitching sessions — where documentary filmmakers pay to pitch at the market before a panel of international commissioning editors — were scheduled for the morning of Thursday, November 17, and for the whole of the following Friday.
Although the local broadcaster — which is one of Sithengi’s sponsors — was present on Thursday, it did not make an appearance on Friday, except to squeeze one of its own producers in to pitch before the day’s lunch break.
Additionally, the afternoon sessions were cancelled — the directors scheduled to pitch were seen during the morning line-up — allegedly so the commissioning editors could attend an SABC-scheduled meeting over lunch.
Johannesburg-based director Pascal Schmitz, who paid R1 750 for an annual membership in order to pitch and who flew to Cape Town five days early to prepare properly, said the ‘whole concept of meeting commissioning editors was a farceâ€.
Schmitz said a German broadcaster who he managed to have some very brief words with remarked that the Sithengi Market ‘looked like a holiday campâ€.
Other directors, who were reluctant to go on record as they feared it would damage their prospects in the industry, corroborated Schmitz’s experience.
An award-winning local director said there was no time to network with anyone. He asked: ‘What was this exercise all about?â€
In fairness to Sithengi, Schmitz and other directors agreed that the workshops were excellent and worth attending.
Sithengi’s market director, Taryn da Canha-Uhlmann, said the Friday documentary pitching sessions were ‘closed at one at the request of the SABCâ€.
Da Canha-Uhlmann said there were only two pitches scheduled for the afternoon and the commissioning editors felt they would rather not return after lunch.
But, she said, everyone who was scheduled to pitch got their turn as the two extra pitches were squeezed into the morning session.
Da Canha-Uhlmann said she did not know why the SABC did not attend Friday’s sessions, but she felt the event as a whole was a success. ‘This is one of the few markets where business deals were signed and sealed.â€
Yet, head of factual genre at the SABC content hub Sylvia Vollenhoven said there was no function organised by the broadcaster for the commissioning editors and Sithengi was ‘being mischievous†by saying so.
Vollenhoven said the foreign commissioning editors left early to attend a Democracy Project meeting with local producer Don Edkinds, and she was the only SABC person present.
She said the SABC representative who was supposed to have attended Friday’s pitching session was ‘exhausted†and was excused, as the SABC had already commissioned all but one of the projects to be pitched. The SABC producer who was hustled into the pitching session before lunch had been omitted from the schedule owing to an error on Sithengi’s part.
Director Derek Antonio Serra, who runs Controversi Films and is a respected filmmaker in the industry, said there were major problems between the SABC and local directors, mostly regarding the SABC’s financing policies.
He said Sithengi had improved ‘by leaps and bounds†since its inception, but he understood that it would be frustrating if, after paying R1 700 to pitch, you got no response and were not able to network.
‘It’s a reality check for most people. It’s a difficult industry with a lot of competition.â€
Steve Kretzmann is the news editor of the Arts and Media Access Centre in Cape Town