It's awful having to contemplate that, once again, it's starting to look like the 13th South African Film and Television Awards set for 2 March at Sun City - this year with the theme of "dreamers" - will yet again be a horrible nightmare.
Sadly, South Africa's TV and film industry deserves so much better than this "dream" awards show that's perpetually more Nightmare on Elm Street, than a Baz Luhrmann Chanel No 5 film ad.
Tell-tale clues already abound about why 2019's 13th Saftas will likely again be a head-shaking, eye-rolling nightmare - one that will likely once again play out like The Play That Goes Wrong in front of a stunned but silent audience and industry too scared, too complicit and too roll-over Stockholm-syndromed to speak up, speak out, and to demand better. Much better.
The terrible-as-usual 13th Saftas nominees announcement this past Friday offered further clues as to how badly done - and acceptingly badly done - the Saftas continues to be organised and executed.
Friday's nominees event and the nominee list happened without a word of criticism from the South Africa's film and TV industry and the media supposedly covering them, who all obviously see and notice these things but don't - and won't - speak about it. Which is, of course, part of why nothing ever gets better.
Let's start with the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and Saftas organisers' very bad 13th Saftas nominee list.
It was clearly not proofread, clearly not spell-checked, and has several mistakes.
But not to bother, because, nobody cares - least of all apparently the Saftas organisers who seem more infatuated about having come up with a theme for the year of "dreamers" like a group of huddling matric pupils planning their farewell dance, than dealing with real-world issues and fixing the real-world nightmare that the Saftas as an awards show the past few years continues to be.
It's apparently just fine to say in your nominees list announcement and documents that Scandal! on e.tv is produced by Scandal! and not even attempt to put out checked and verified, correct information first, or to issue corrections because ... it's just South Africa.
We're not the Emmys or the Oscars or the Grammys. South Africa is only good enough for the "play version" of what is supposed to be the country's most important TV and film awards - which is why the Saftas organisers apparently make a drinking game of seeing how many ways it can list kykNET's "The Ellen Pakkies Stories".
After all, as the NFVF and Saftas told us, the nominees from 92 categories are all "dreamers" who were picked by over 200 secret industry experts from various provinces. And don't forget, we're told, that the overall judges Firdoze Bulbulia and Thembi Mtshali-Jones, alongside the auditors, OMA Chartered Accountants audited both judging phases.
Did Firdoze and Thembi and OMA read through the 13th Saftas nominees list that was made public and given to the media for public consumption on Friday? Personally, I find it embarrassing and shameful. But again ... we're just South Africa.
Where and who is the PR company or publicists working or appointed or helping, or the specific people involved to deal with the media, to get media to the Saftas, handling press accreditation,a nd issuing press releases? With just over two weeks to go there doesn't seem to be any such thing happening.
How is the media covering the Saftas supposed to engage with it, and though the media, the NFVF and the Saftas reaching the film and TV industry and more importantly, the public, the consumers who make their existence possible in the first place?
Instead of going bigger, NFVF CEO Shadrack Bokaba and the Saftas organisers appear to be shrinking smaller.
Gone and cut for instance is the technical awards ceremony that was the first of the 2 nights Saftas soiree in past years.
Again, is appears to be too difficult or too big of an actual task for the NFVF and Saftas organisers to reach out and to try and get some type of partnership going with a Showmax, SABC3, some other type of streaming service, or TV channel like M-Net Movies, to broadcast and show the technical awards.
This is content, stuff that at least people really interested in film and television in South Africa will and want to watch - but can't.
And why are the people working behind-the-scenes in South Africa's TV and film industry never getting their proper public due? And if not at, and through the Saftas, then where?
Instead the NFVF seems content to narrow down instead of enlarging the marquee tent that the Saftas is and could and should be for this country.
Furthermore, what is going on with the Saftas categories and where nominees fit?
This year some of the nominees in several of the categories are just laughably ridiculous again (which doesn't mean they're not deserving). The problem is the Saftas organisers and judges allocation.
Reality shows as nominee in Best Music. A reality lifestyle show as a nominee under Best variety show, or a music concert as a nominee under Best variety. Do these people judging and deciding on these shows and categories actually watch television? Get real Saftas.
The actual truth is that they're only after the money from the NFVF and tie-in sponsorships, unable and unwilling to bite the hand that feeds it. Get ready again for pages filled with nothing but flowery coverage, copy-and-paste PR articles, and red carpet photos instead of actual, real reporting.
And to broadcasters: I find it highly disturbing that someone highly-respected like Yolisa Phahle, MultiChoice CEO for general entertainment, after Friday's nominees announcement would come out and say something like "a quick glass of fizz was in order" and that "we'll also be having a party to celebrate with all of the amazing producers who've worked with us".
MultiChoice and M-Net's biggest shows are literally deliberately boycotting the Saftas while MultiChoice bosses apparently drink champagne over the numerous Saftas nominees tally.
Put down the glasses, dear TV executives, and work hard on seriously investigating, bridging the gaps and conflicts, and resolving the ongoing, simmering and serious issues and concerns that South African TV producers like Ferguson Films have with the Saftas.
All of literally the most popular shows on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) on DStv - the most-watched overall on the DStv platform like The Queen, The Imposter and The Throne are nowhere to be seen at this year's Saftas.
Also gone (again!) are Generations (SABC1's biggest show, for the third time), Muvhango (SABC2's biggest show, for the 4th time) and 7de Laan, and others. They all deliberately snubbed the Saftas.
That is not what TV executives at MultiChoice, the SABC, and elsewhere should be drinking glasses of fizz over.
Why does this go on for year, after year, after year, with the Saftas?
Where is the supposed "leadership" from the Saftas organisers and proper award show management , the actual reaching out to producers to address their concerns regarding the judging process, the lack of transparency, the allegations of unfairness, and the other big issues they're unhappy about?
Where is the multi-year, future-proofing, progressive, carousel-deal between the NFVF and Saftas organisers and South Africa's big broadcasters - the SABC, e.tv, M-Net and Mzansi Magic - to take a real type of "broadcast ownership" by doing turnstile-turn years of broadcasting of the Saftas in the way the Emmys are done?
Why is the Saftas constantly stuck being trash and not moving forward?
And talking about the death-creep danger when remaining static, instead of moving forward in life and business:
Will we again hear of Saftas lifetime achievement award winners from previous years who haven't been invited? Will we again hear of "promised" hotel accommodation being a mess and for some, non-existent?
Will the television production again look cheap and handycam-filmed, with panning over empty seats, people walking past in front of the camera, bad sound and music, presenters who struggle to read and who are reading the text on the prompter for the first time, people who can't pronounce names and who weren't told how, spelling and name mistakes in the on-screen banners, wrong banners, and a profusion of other errors?
I hope not. Yet, instead of "dreams" I'm already getting nightmares again just thinking about it all.
The big irony remains how an awards show and ceremony supposed to show how good South Africa's film and TV industry is, ends up showing - year after year - how supposedly bad and amateurish it is (which it isn't).
It's time for the NFVF, the Saftas organisers and South Africa's TV and film industry - everyone who is and who wants to be associated with the Saftas - to stop being "dreamers" and to start doing.
A drastic, proper, thoughtful and comprehensive overhaul is needed to improve the Saftas and to make it into what it's supposed to be: a successful, beautiful and inclusive showcase of what South Africa's TV and film biz really is.
