by Thinus Ferreira
2027's 15th kykNET Silwerskermfees film festival is promised to have 18 short films in Afrikaans and several feature-length films, as kykNET boss Waldimar Pelser said South Africa's film industry needs to craft local films and Afrikaans films that pull in full cinema theatres.
This year's just concluded 14th kykNET Silwerskermfees film festival had 17 short films, and five feature-length films, but only three of these feature films were actually in-competition festival films.
In the past few months, industry insiders and filmmakers have told TVwithThinus that they are increasingly worried, with growing concern over the future and survival of this film festival, given the scaled-back scope and quantum of the output of original Afrikaans content commissioned to sustain this annual film festival.
"We're planning: For next year there are 18 short films in development and several feature-length films - a few have been filmed already,' Waldimar Pelser, M-Net director of premium channels at Canal+'s MultiChoice, said on stage at this year's 4th kykNET Silwerskerm Awards for Film and Television, which closed out the 14th Silwerskermfees film festival in Cape Town.
Waldimar Pelser said the kykNET team endeavours to produce Afrikaans video content "since we can't imagine a world without Afrikaans film and TV - it's an existentially important issue".
"I don't think it's just us feeling like this. I know a lot of our viewers don't want to live in a world where art is not created in Afrikaans."
He noted that "TV and film, and in this case TV and film in Afrikaans, binds the Afrikaans community to each other in a shared conversation. That's why we at kykNET at MultiChoice believe that what happens here at the Silwerskermfees, the awards, and on kykNET is so incredibly important".
"Many of you sitting here can work internationally. Many of you do. You can work in English; you could have chosen that career, but you chose to tell stories in Afrikaans, and it enriches the lives of all of us and viewers at home."
Regarding the feature-length films, Waldimar Pelser said "kykNET likes to wait for DStv subscribers to see these films on TV - it is where, by far, the most eyeballs watch this wonderful content".
"Yet it is very important for us to make the type of films which fully come into their own on the big screen. That's why I'm asking viewers to go watch full-length feature films in cinemas."
"Your DStv subscription fee is a voting ballot for Afrikaans. Afrikaans film tradition is one of the oldest in Africa and we want to do our part to keep it going."
He noted that My f*k, Marelize became the highest-grossing local film at the South African box office since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. "We must make films that lure full cinema theatres."
"There are so many reasons to be hopeful about Afrikaans content. There's so much creativity and so much talent. At MultiChoice, now part of the Canal+ group, the telling of these types of authentic stories for all of the communities we serve, at the absolute heart of what we do and will continue to do."
"Afrikaans content stands absolutely central to this and this will continue to be the case into the future."
