by Thinus Ferreira
I didn't sleep at all last Wednesday night - ask the people who for instance got emails from me at 3am in the morning - as I sat like a Rumpelstiltskin and had to spin a 39-page PDF of awful, mistake-filled SAFTAs nominees hay into publishable gold.
With all due respect: The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and its acting CEO Thobela Mayinje and the South African Film and Video Awards organisers have no idea and don't seem to care about the shocking damage it keeps inflicting on its own shoddily done awards and the way it keeps embarrassing instead of building South Africa's film and TV industry.
Does Anyone at the NFVF and the anonymous SAFTAs jury actually watch television?
I'm asking, because you're calling Netflix "Neflix" and the kykNET comedy series Taktiek which is one of the most-nominated shows this year constantly "Tatkiek".
None of you noticed, bothered, cared or apparently read or checked your own documents - which makes me doubt everything you claimed you've watched, to choose the nominees.
I watch television and the multiple mistakes immediately jumped out at me, as they do every year. I've covered the SAFTAs since its very first year.
For this year's nominees announcement you once again couldn't bother with alerting the media and sending out an advisory, or calling journalists, that you'd be sending out and releasing the nominees list - you just suddenly dump an awful, mistake-riddled document on them.
There is no advisory, no nominees media briefing, no SAFTAs briefing, no proper SAFTAs media PR or dedicated SAFTAs publicity, and yet you probably wonder why there isn't actual coverage or more coverage of your awards (that taxpayers are paying for).
The only way I managed to get an embargoed list on Wednesday night last week is because of a publicist at a broadcaster (bless her soul!) who happened to alert me two weeks ago with a "Did you the NFVF plans to release the nominees this date?"
If not for that, and not for her, I too would have been blindsided like the rest of South Africa's media that the 18th SAFTAs nominees were going to be dumped on us as a 39-page document that takes hours and hours to type and format and fix and get print ready.
Why is it that the PR teams of America's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the Oscars and the Television Academy doing the Emmys communicate with South African journalists and media more and better than what the NFVF does about the SAFTAs? It's a crying, disgusting shame.
Because you don't know or care, Redemption on Paramount Africa's BET channel is just "DStv".
Because you're clueless that the nominated City Beasts: Cape of Chaos is a People's Weather show, you just put "DStv" (although it's just shown on DStv, but also shown on eMedia's Openview).
The same with Snakes in the City and Legends of Venom which are both National Geographic productions (you just go with the place-filler DStv).
Why is there no discussion ever, no interaction ever, no asking media ever: How would you like an awards show nominees list? In what format? On what date with an embargo if we plan to release the list on such-and-such a date?
Why do you send a list but nothing visual like a photo? Have you ever seen a long article or a nomination article about an awards show anywhere without a picture of it?
Why must media who bother to call or need to phone, call the NFVF's landline and be put through a switchboard? Do your people who are getting paid to deal and communicate and liaise with media not want to really be bothered by media? It's 2024 and you do landline with media. Think about it.
Take a close look at the embarrassing document you've sent the media.
It's "MNET" and then "Mnet" and "Mnet 101" and everything literally besides "M-Net" which is correct; and "kyknet" and "KYKNET" and "Kyknet"and "KykNet" - basically every single permutation besides "kykNET" which is the correct one.
And is "Neflix" supposed to be Netflix?
The 18th SAFTAs nominees list goes from "LIFEOFJS" to "LifeofJS", and Amazon Prime (it's Amazon Prime Video or Prime Video - Amazon Prime is a subscription membership), to random CAPITAL LETTERS for 17 FILMS and DIPRENTE and others that become 17 Films and Diprente later.
The word "Tatkiek" which never existed, now exists on the internet - all thanks to you NFVF and SAFTAs (and the media that shamelessly copied and pasted your mistake-riddled list and press release and didn't check anything or didn't have time and wrote about TV but doesn't actually watch nominated shows).
How do you come up with the weird line spacing and the line justification that keeps jumping from left to full and back in the nominees document?
The entire way the NFVF as an agency of South Africa's department of Sport, Arts and Culture, "announces" SAFTAs nominees is inadequate, amateurish and extremely damaging to the industry it supposedly tries to elevate.
It shows a lack of care, a lack of international industry know-how and best practices, and a lack of even the smallest attempt to try and find out, learn, and to do better and improve.
While nobody says anything, take my word for it: South African media everywhere are fed up (those who still care and haven't disengaged and given up). South African broadcasters and streamers are all irritated - they just won't say so publicly in order to maintain relationships.
And South Africa's producers, production companies, actors and people working their behinds off, and then trying and hoping for a nomination or maybe a Golden Horn, are superbly disappointed year after year in the tragic display the NFVF calls the SAFTAs nominees and SAFTAs awards ceremony broadcast.
It's really way too late to get your act together. Start doing it better. Start doing it right.
And just a final question: What is happening with the 18th SAFTAs next month dear NFVF?
As media, we know nothing. As in ... NOTHING. We heard about the date ... yesterday when you put it in a press release. Call us please - even if you have to use the landline.
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