by Thinus Ferreira
With France's 2021 Cannes Film Festival starting today, Africa growing film festivals circuit is still grappling with big existential questions amidst the ongoing global Covid-pandemic, like kykNET's Silwerskermfees that hasn't announced dates or details for the year yet but that is considering three different options.
The past few months, South African film festivals and African award shows that had to stop their plans for physical get-togethers and events dead in their tracks in 2020 due to Covid, have been contemplating on the best ways to navigate a basically impossible set of circumstances.
While Germany's 71st Berlin International Film Festival just concluded its Berlinale Summer Special as a series of screenings at 16 outdoor locations across Berlin and Cannes kicking off with saliva Covid-tests at the French Riviera, Africa's film festival and award show organisers are caught in circumstances marking a stark difference to their European counterparts.
While first-world countries like France, the United States and the United Kingdom are trying and starting to return to whatever the "new normal" is, the rate of providing Covid-vaccinations has been extremely low in Africa while the continent is being ravaged by a dangerous third wave of the Delta variant and an escalating count of cases and deaths in countries ranging from South Africa and Kenya to Nigeria.
The sudden press of the pause button in 2020 on the growing film festivals and award shows industry in South Africa has already cost thousands of permanent and part-time jobs and crippled several event organising companies, while depriving the continent's filmmakers of much-needed opportunities for exposure of their work, possible sales and networking, as well as the chance for educational and upskilling sessions.
While MultiChoice still squeezed in the 2020 African Magic Viewers' Choice Awards in Lagos, Nigeria - where people tested Covid-19 positive - as well as the 3rd 2020 DStv Mzansi Viewers' Choice Awards in Johannesburg, South Africa, with both ceremonies taking place on 14 March last year, MultiChoice and M-Net have scrapped any plans for these awards shows for 2021.
A new One People International Film Festival in Cape Town in late-April had to settle for a low-key hybrid in-person event and online screenings, with cinema showings at Nu Metro Canal Walk, while the International Tourism Film Festival Africa was held in June at the Labia Theatre in Cape Town.
In May, the National Film and Video Foundation's 15th South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) returned from 2020's botched virtual online broadcast back to a televised awards show but without an in-person audience.
The 23rd 2021 Encounters South African International Documentary Festival in June took place as a virtual film festival for 10 days, after which South Africa's government announced an adjusted Level 4 lockdown forcing the struggling cinema sector to shutter yet again, with all Ster-Kinekor, Cine Centre, Nu Metro, and independent film theatres that remain closed.
From 16 to 25 July the 12th Durban FilmMart will also take place as a virtual online event, similar to last year.
The DFM will be followed by the 42nd Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) from 22 July to 1 August 2021 that will be accessible as a free virtual event.
That leaves the annual kykNET Silwerskermfees, usually taking place in August in Cape Town's Camps Bay and that's modeled on France's Cannes Film Festival.
The Silwerskermfees was turned into an online webinar series in 2020 because of Covid with M-Net that hasn't yet announced any plans for this year's Silwerskermfees but that is considering three different film festival options.
Suzaan Keyter, kykNET spokesperson tells TVwithThinus in response to a media enquiry that no dates have been announced yet.
"Plans are still underway but we are keeping tabs on the unfolding situation [regarding Covid] before we make any announcements. We have several options and dates for the film festival as well the content. Planning continues behind-the-scenes for three different options," she says.
