From 1 to 4 October, the Soweto Film Market returns to the Blue Theatre at Soweto Theatre and the Eyethu Heritage Hall for its second edition, bringing with it four days of screenings, industry dealmaking and skills workshops.
Thapelo "Tabz" Motloung was 12 years old when a poem he recited at school caught the ear of a former Metro FM newsreader who was visiting to motivate learners. The poem ended up in a community literacy project, which led to a TV interview, which led to a producer telling a wide-eyed Motloung he had "a big voice" and should consider presenting.
He never really left.
Motloung went on to work as an inset presenter for YoTV, acted in a string of local films and later hosted shows on eTV and SABC1. But behind the credits was a young performer who, by his own account, spent years fighting for scraps of opportunity in an industry that rarely opened its doors easily.
"I was actually thinking of a young Tabz that never even got half of the opportunities that I got," he says. That thought became the seed of the Soweto Film Market: a platform built not around him but around the filmmakers coming after him.
The idea took shape through his time with the Soweto International Film Festival, where he was first roped in to MC events before falling for the work. He and his collaborators, among them Thami Kallison, the market's head of marketing and festival director, wanted to go beyond screenings and into skills development, trade and mentorship. What began as an attempt to fold the ambition into an existing festival eventually became its own entity: the Soweto Film Market.
It's a distinction Motloung is used to explaining. A festival, he says, is essentially a competition. Filmmakers submit their work through platforms like FilmFreeway, films are judged and the best are screened and awarded.
A market is something else entirely.
"A market focuses on trade," Motloung explains. It's where distributors, broadcasters and buyers come to acquire content, where filmmakers pitch and network and where the business side of the industry — licensing deals, pre-sales, partnerships — gets done. Think of Soweto's answer to the Durban FilmMart or the American Film Market but rooted firmly in Soweto soil.
Alongside the trade component sits a heavy emphasis on training. This year's incubator programme, run with Media Valley, Story Oasis, Writers Guild and streaming platform Hektik, is helping young filmmakers develop their first microdramas. There are also masterclasses with production houses, including OMFilms, aimed at creators wanting to break into vertical, social media-first storytelling.
The market's industry programme runs on 2 and 3 October, and it's where the real dealmaking happens. Distribution company Indigenous Film Distribution, described by Motloung as the biggest of its kind in Africa, will be present alongside representatives from local and international broadcasters and streaming-linked partners.
For an aspiring filmmaker from Soweto, that access is rare.
"This is now access to a Thapelo in Soweto that is looking to make their first film," he says. "This is a certain calibre of individuals who attend these types of platforms." Filmmakers who register are able to pitch concepts, secure pre-sales and build relationships with decision-makers they would otherwise never meet.
The 2 October programme also includes an industry-only workshop run with the South African Women in Film and Television (Swift) and Safe Sets, focused on intimacy coordination and boundaries on set. It's a response, Motloung suggests, to incidents in the industry that made the training necessary.
Submissions for this year's market drew filmmakers from well beyond South Africa's borders too, with selected international films coming in from Greece, France, Canada and Brazil. Motloung puts some of that pull down to the name.
"Because of the history Soweto has," he says, international filmmakers often buy into the platform before they've even read past the name.
While the industry programme is the market's engine, its heart is open to everyone.
From 1 to 4 October, more than 40 films will screen at Eyethu Heritage Hall, one of the first black-owned cinemas in Africa, giving Soweto residents free access to a slate of local and international work they'd rarely get to see in one place.
On 3 October, the public programme will extend to workshops held at the Apartheid Museum. The Gauteng Film Commission will run a session on what a strong funding application looks like, a practical answer to a problem Motloung says trips up too many young filmmakers. The Save Jobs movement will also host a panel as part of the day.
The choice of venue isn't incidental. This year marks 50 years since the June 16 uprising.
Motloung says holding the public programme at the Apartheid Museum was a deliberate way of tying the market's storytelling mission to the country's history.
"This year holding it at the Apartheid Museum will help the consciousness of young people to remember where we come from as a country and where we are going."
At 27, Motloung is, in his words, "getting old", a joke he makes more than once during our conversation.
Alongside running the market, he hosts the Weekend Breakfast Show on YOU FM every Saturday, works as a radio drama producer at SABC and is the brand ambassador for Stumble, a new podcast on nostalgia and growing up in South Africa set to launch soon.
He's also studying part-time toward a bachelor's degree in PR and communications through Unisa, having paused his studies early in his career to chase the work.
Last month, that body of work saw him named to the Mail & Guardian's 200 Young South Africans list, recognition he takes seriously without letting it define the mission.
For Motloung, the Soweto Film Market was never meant to be about him. It's about the filmmakers who, like a young Tapz once did, are looking for a room where their work might finally be seen.
"My dreams and aspirations are to see the platform inspire more young people and help more young people tell their first stories," he says. "And to unite Soweto with the world, because Soweto is a global community."
Four days in October and the whole world is invited.