Thirteen years into our fledgling democracy, our film industry has much to celebrate. In terms of awards, available finance, positive government and industry goodwill and incoming service productions, the film industry has been bathing in a particularly positive light. However, things needs to be turned up a notch. We need to examine a tough question — that of our commerciality — and start to look at the business side of show business.
Film tourism might be an ambiguous term, but it refers to the idea that every time a specific location or destination is used in a film, the film indirectly promotes the destination to its viewers. "This has been evident within the Bollywood film market," says Mark Visser of the Cape Film Commission.
"When I attended film school, it dawned on me and my fellow students that the key to a successful pitch lay in addressing the salient issues of distribution," writes lawyer and film aficionado Charl Groenewald in the introduction to his book <i>The Laws of Movie-Making</i>.
The forthcoming book, <i>Marginal Lives and Painful Pasts: SA Cinema of Apartheid</i>, edited by Martin Botha, a collaboration between Genugtig! Uitgewers and the University of Cape Town’s new African Cinema Unit, is one of the first to explore an overview of local cinema in the new South Africa.
There are a few special places that, no matter how many times you visit them, always stir the senses, refresh the soul and banish the stresses and strains of everyday life. For me, Mpumalanga’s Blyde River Canyon is one of these places.
Zimbabwean teachers are leaving home in droves. Low salaries and poor working conditions have made life unbearable for them. It is estimated that since last year almost every school in the country has lost at least three to four teachers.
Sejankabo High School hogged the headlines last year for producing an overall matric pass rate of only 9,21%.
Despite a dearth of locally made feature films in the past year, the South African film industry is being buoyed by comparatively low production costs that attract foreign films and commercials. And the glitter-dust from Tsotsi’s Oscar win last year and <i>U-Carmen eKhayelitsha</i>’s Golden Bear for best film at the 2005 Berlinale casts a hip glow on the film industry.
Portia’s story: Patience in our lives by Dawn Baaba Arthur.
A few years ago if you had seen Leon Schuster’s Mr Bones you would have watched one of the highest grossing and, dare it be said, best films South Africa had to offer. Thankfully the same can’t be said of our industry’s current output with the advent of films such as Bunny Chow and Tsotsi.