Exploring possible futures through African Film the role of film in development communication.
It is a national moral imperative to create platforms for ordinary South Africans to be able to bear influence in the expression of their own images. In this way, we, as an industry, can contribute to furthering our democratic ideals and creating prosperity.
This statement is fundamental to all NFVF activities and we feel that it is part of our task to accelerate the pace of economic growth and job creation within the cultural industries through film and to extend the scope of development and empowerment.
Our approach has four key priority areas for the long-term.
i. To increase foreign and local direct investment into film production through encouragement of private-public partnerships.
ii. To invest directly in infrastructure and facilitate industrial capital formation required to exhibit South African and African film product.
iii. To improve access to a viable film industry both in terms of ownership and in terms of consumption and lastly.
iv. To establish a regulatory and legal framework for the industry, that will provide the necessary certainty and stability required by the investor community.
The NFVF is pleased to note that our government through Asgisa, does acknowledge that film is more than just an economic activity, recognising the social, ideological and cultural aspects of the moving image. The affirmation of a people's culture, through film is an integral part of the overall social, cultural and economic development and therefore prosperity for the nation.
Although the primary objectives of the NFVF relate to promotion of the film and video industry, the NFVF acknowledges the important role of film and television in asserting and projecting cultural presence and identity. Indigenous productions tell stories in the language and idiom of a country, they define places and peoples and they impact powerfully on people's sense of belonging.
As the government noted with the adoption of the Macro Economic Framework, "The second challenge of the RDP was building the economy, but now that the pace of economic growth needs to be accelerated, investment in industry and infrastructure and an expansion of job opportunities are critical challenges – all to underpin growth and expand room for broad based empowerment." Since its inception, the NFVF has achieved many of its goals within the macro-economic framework articulated by government.
The NFVF believes that key to the development of the film industry in South Africa is effective skills development, increased access to film theatres, nurturing prospects for people from disadvantaged communities and equitable distribution of resources. Historically such opportunities have been concentrated in the main metropolitan centres of the country and particularly white suburbs. Even then, distribution houses have refused to show African film, and locally produced product. In short, they have marginalised an economically active customer base, which has led to uninformed perception of black people’s attitude towards cinema, denying them access to one key source of information and entertainment. How do you explain the fact that the population of three to four million people in Soweto still cannot walk to a cinema?
In many developing countries, including South Africa, cultural industries and in particular film are not sufficiently exploited to their full commercial potential. Their contributions to local job creation and foreign exchange earnings are seen as being limited. Film in our country whilst recognised for the economic and commercial value it creates and the economic impact it has in a region, it has not had the support required to achieve necessary societal impact. And more than often this sector is to some extent neglected or not acknowledged as being a part of the manufacturing industry of a country. We need to move away from the view that film production should only be seen as a hobby like activity rather than a profit-making activity. This is quite contrary to other developed nations where the sector contributes a significant proportion of the gross national product. The recently published study by the Cape Film Commission supports this assertion.
Often the film practitioners have themselves to blame, as they do not regard their profession as a business activity, and even feel threatened that being commercial may interfere with their artistic integrity.
We are convinced of the fact that strategic opportunities exist for creating a dynamic market for African film and clearly see the film industry having it's future being an exporter of products to the rest world and mainly between African countries. Various opportunities exist and need to be explored to create a culture of sustainable resources management wherein film can flourish, and the ideals of an African renaissance can be realised. For African film to flourish, it has to appeal first to audiences at home before we can hope to break into foreign markets, at the same time proper facilities have to be created. It is the intention of the NFVF in the new financial year to begin a pilot project in Soweto whereby we establish alternative digital screens, based on a concept of multiple screens. Whilst we do not intend these to be in competition with current screens owned by Ster-kinekor and Nu-Metro, we believe there is room for their co-existence. I am introducing this concept with an old belief that going to cinema is still an experience.
The NFVF believes that facilitating investment and funding into film will be the true engine for job creation. Government's role is creating an enabling environment that supports the development of a vibrant market for film, stimulating the emergence of locally based small business enterprises, and creation and support for distribution channels.
Here again we see the Digital Screens play an important role, as a medium to long term planning and action to ensure development of community based entrepreneurship. This will bring the markets closer to the community and communities being brought into the mainstream of the economy. The NFVF is a strong advocate for true ownership of film production tools, distribution and exhibition, copyright and other intellectual properties.
The NFVF believes that a good starting point would be to regard and treat the Digital Screens as viable distribution outlets for African film product, which operate as conventional businesses with its own income stream. This will assist in developing respect for our product and appreciation of our creative ability and integrity.
There is an urgent need for government to facilitate and support programmes for film development linked to market reforms and technology development. Whilst we acknowledge the moves already taken by the DTI to incentivise production and encourage foreign investment through film, we equally need to ensure that this is not done at the expense of the development of our indigenous industry.
The NFVF has also aligned itself to government thinking that encourages the creation of public private partnerships in different sector. The NFVF will continue to advocate for partnerships between the various stakeholders, as we believe that only through these partnerships and collaboration, where broadcaster, government and independent producer come together, we are able to wrestle but importantly overcome the obstacles.
The partnerships between all the stakeholders in the film industry will give the industry more and better skilled local filmmakers who will ensure a flow of local content on our screens. Furthermore, government and the stakeholders in the film and television industry will thereby join hands to provide our nation with locally produced programming.
We have managed to show the private sector that we do operate a 'grown-up' viable industry, whereby like any other business there is risk, but ample opportunity to make profit as well and that there is an audience that is willing and able to pay to watch movies. That together we can achieve that entrepreneurship and skill required to growing the industry.
The film industry could play a much more important role in the economy of our country with government support, through a clearly articulated cultural policy and appropriate measures to promote the various sectors, and, in particular, to promote what may be called entrepreneurship. The NFVF wishes to move away from the so-called ‘non-profit cultural entrepreneurship’ which focuses on the sustainability of the enterprise, through support by funders or donations, and that has as its objective, social and cultural purposes and not necessarily that of economic stimulation. The NFVF believes that there is an opportunity for empowering both the producers of local product and distributors by ensuring that they generate decent incomes from their productive efforts, as well as linking them to market opportunities and thus generating income.
In certain areas, such as crafts, major international agencies (e.g. UNESCO, ITC, UNDP, ILO) have, over the past few years, joined efforts in promoting policies and implementing integrated programmes that focuses on both the cultural and enterprise development aspects of the crafts sector. However, similar approaches are seldom used in other sectors closely related to the cultural heritage of a country, such as music, film, dance, painting, etc. In these sectors, it is mainly the 'cultural development' approach that is applied. The few cases, where a 'commercial' approach complements the 'cultural' approach, are mostly the result of initiatives by individuals who have combined artistic and entrepreneurial skills.
We need to develop a market niche for filmmaking and create and support distribution channels to ensure the wide distribution of African film. We know it has been said often enough but the statistics still show us the truth, our cinema screens remain dominated by Hollywood product. Only a few Africans ever get to see an African film. Therefore our major challenge is to develop more effective and sustainable ways and mechanisms with which African film can break out of its traditional confines of festivals and community centres into cinema theatres both in urban but most importantly in local black areas.
