At a press conference on Thursday the Safta
organisers revealed that the awards show handing out Golden Horn trophies to
South African TV shows and films will no longer be taking place in Johannesburg
where it’s been held for the past decade, but will be leaving Gauteng and
moving to the North West province.
Safta organisers said the move from
Johannesburg to Sun City has been done to develop and transform the TV and film
industry in other provinces outside of Gauteng, although its not clear how a
2-night TV awards show will promote actual long-term provincial upskilling.
The awards show will be televised next month
from Sun City.
In previous years the Saftas have been marred
by bad production values, the inclusion of some bizarre nominees wrongly
appearing in certain categories, boycotts by various broadcasters and TV soap
productions ranging from public to pay-TV productions and for ongoing
non-inclusivity issues.
Controversy also continue to swirl around the
Saftas for dumping certain TV soaps from the Most Popular TV soap category if
they refuse to enter in any other categories although Safta organisers say they
want to make the awards show more inclusive.
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF)
organising the Saftas, dumped categories like Best Sports Show, Best Animation
film and Best TV animation, saying South Africa lacks adequate submissions in
these TV and film fields.
Categories within news and actuality remain
almost non-existentwith no recognition of TV news anchors and TV journalists. Best
TV Talk show host and Best Micro film have now been added, as well as the New
Discretionary Award that the Saftas will hand out to a youth achiever.
The number of entries for Safta categories
increased from 416 to 440, judged by 181 judges with John Kani, Jerry Mofokeng
and Firdoze Bulbulia as the three judging chairpersons.
The various Safta nominees are likely to be
announced on 16 February.
