South African films are making waves overseas, however most South Africans have not heard about them. Films such as Catching Feelings, Vaya and Ellen opened to much acclaim overseas but have not quite taken off locally mainly because of marketing and access.
Film makers say it will take R100 million to build 10 cinemas in townships to reach the target audience for films such as Matwetwe. They say while institutions have made money available for film making, there are no budgets for marketing.
The South African Film Summit is held in Johannesburg.
The artistic director for the Durban International Film festival Chipo Zhou is optimistic about the South African film industry. Zhou is a curator who creates platforms such as the film festival, to attract investors and distributors to local films.
“There is an appetite for South African films abroad and we are seeing a lot of funders coming to the fore we have a lot of countries have already had co-production treaties with are still very keen and are still funding. You will find that when films go for example to Berlin distributors are keen to buy that content, even the american market is taking an interest in us, we had a BRICS festival last year and those countries seem to think there is an appetite for SA content.”
Zhou is still raving about Vaya which was a story about family and survival. The film was as well received locally as it was internationally.
Currently Matwetwe, produced by Black Coffee and directed by Kagiso Lediga, has grossed R2 million in eight days. Chairperson of AFRIFF film festival Lala Tuku says there were a number of secrets to its success…
“Matwetwe is doing exceptionally well purely because its a story about Ga-Rankuwa and its the music its new faces so there’s a number of things that create a successful film first though narrative is important then the genre then do people have access to watch our content.”
Tuku says they are pushing for 10 cinemas in the townships but this is a project that will require R100 million. While Zhou does not dismiss township cinemas she feels that there will be faster progress if broadcasters are brought along and maybe persuaded to open a channel just for local movies.
CEO of the Zanzibar International Festival, Faith Isiakpere says Africans need to move towards ownership of the supply chain because while African films are gaining traction, the money is not reaching the content creators.
“It’s providing platform but they are making big money. Whether it’s African Magic or Netflix, it is our story that African Magic is exploiting but we are not the people making money out of it. So we should have our own way of distributing our films so that the reward come back to black owned African companies.”
The film summit was a two day affair which ended on Tuesday. Participants discussed a number of issues affecting the industry including tapping into the YouTube content creation platform and streaming, reclaiming copyright, transformation and investment.
