by Thinus Ferreira
As 2023's edition of kykNET's annual 11th Silwerskermfees film festival drew to a close over the weekend after a week of premieres, film types chattering, and wine glasses clinking in Camps Bay in Cape Town as it rained outside, multiple questions kept swirling about the current state - and future - of South Africa's film and TV biz.
Here are five salient takeaway points to ponder:
1. Serious business
Maybe it was the early spring rains sifting down keeping everyone mostly hunkered down and the sundeck mostly empty, maybe it was the even more urgent need to network and pin down producers and execs for possible early dealmaking and shop talks and introductions at any available bistro table, but the film festival had an even more serious atmosphere than last year.
Maybe Covid really changed everything.
Some of the late-night frivolity and somewhat party atmosphere was still present - mostly on display on Friday night - complete with a clubhouse DJ vibe on the window-fronted first floor of The Bay Hotel - but none of it was anything like the film fest's joie de vivre like previous years.
Everywhere it was evident: people milling about were not really in the mood for superficial small talk - they were hanging around waiting for opportune open moments to try and strike while the iron is hot to make quick connections with deliberately sought-out industry types for quick chats, selling themselves and their potential projects and getting numbers into phones.
An on-property "treasure hunt" for a little treasure chest on Thursday tied to the screening of an upcoming new kykNET reality competition show - a neat idea that had the potential to create some communal excitement and buzz at the festival - was quickly over before it even began.
The Silwerskerm film festival is still fun but more than ever everyone attending are focused on fast and furious connection.
2. Programme schedule
This year's Silwerskermfees felt like those who attended never really got the really specific answers they came to seek.
Maybe there are no answers yet, or no easy answers to be found. Q&A time during and after panel sessions were the most limited and short it's ever been - or was non-existent - as sessions ran out of time.
As South Africa's film biz and creatives are looking for answers from those holding the purse strings and controlling commissioning budgets, answers remained overall elusive and vague.
With heightened anxiety in a difficult economy about a future with AI, streaming services and where and how everything fit in and together, creatives got vague answers like "we're not looking for niche", "we're looking for new ideas", "we're not looking for what others are doing", "we're looking for edgy", "we want content that resonates with our audience".
Programme schedule-wise, people complained about and whispered about kykNET's lack of a physical, printed film festival schedule booklet guide this year - something they say work better than just an app, to look up and read schedules and film information and that a real booklet is simply more practical as a quick pull-out.
While the schedule had interesting panels, unlike previous years where panels had more varied experts, panels this year comprised mostly MultiChoice and M-Net execs. It meant festivalgoers got mostly the MultiChoice and M-Net as company talking points - with a lesser emphasis on industry-wider perspectives.
In previous years there were more panel sessions with more general topics under discussion at the film festival - how to finance your film, insurance, securing film locations and general film biz-focused panels.
These made way for more thematically themed sessions centred around what MultiChoice and M-Net are doing within the content space and what they are looking for.
3. An influx of new faces
Publicists and actors who became producers, execs who became consultants, first-time female directors, new stars, new filmmakers, and old faces venturing into new chapters: The 11th Silwerskermfees was filled with fresh faces trying new things.
The most exciting thing about the Silwerskerm festival is probably its core aim - in which it remains very successful: Making the circle bigger and bringing in new voices, new images, new talent behind and in front of the screen and new hope into what can often be a jaded industry outlook.
With new films and series - telling new and varied stories set in new and some rarely-shown places - the blue carpet at this year's Bay Hotel saw hundreds of new sets of feet making their way to the Rotunda for premieres, screenings and panel sessions.
The addition for the first time in its existence of TV to the film festival, also helped to bring an added new dimension as well as new first-time visitors and stars (one from as far as Amsterdam with Trix Viviers starring in Juffrou X).
So too did the the addition of TV categories for kykNET television shows to the annual awards ceremony.
4. The name not said
Like out of Harry Potter, the elephant in the room - as in previous years - remains the word "Netflix". You can use the F-word, just politely please try and refrain from using use the N-word.
Even M-Net director of premium channels Waldimar Pelser, in a panel session literally made a mention about "viewers happy to stay with us than being promiscuous and going onto an unnamed streaming platform that's not in the room".
It's not that Netflix scares everyone like a Voldemort.
It's that its gigantic influence - also in Africa and in South Africa - looms large over the existing TV and film industry and the traditional pay-TV industry which is having to play catch-up here, as they are in the United States and other markets.
What the future will be for TV in local markets where global streamers are increasing their influence and popularity, remains to be seen. It's also that broadcasters, producers and talent have to try and navigate a whole new uncertain world where decisions must be made without a lot of answers and without a lot of information, while the industry's tectonic plates are felt shifting.
5. Awards improvement but ...
kykNET for the first time added TV category winners to its awards show for its Silwerskermfees and renamed it.
It's now known as the Silwerskerm Awards for TV and Film and it's a great change. There are however more Afrikaans television than just kykNET Afrikaans.
For a first time, the inaugural edition of the Silwerskerm Awards for TV and Film was wonderful but of course it can and will be improved further with more refinements and tweaking as the years go by.
kykNET would do well - and it would do and serve the entire industry well - by making the Silwerskerm Awards for TV and Film more inclusive of Afrikaans television in its totality than by keeping Afrikaans television on other platforms deliberately locked out.
kykNET can - and should - add Afrikaans television to the nominees list, from wherever it is found and available: SABC2, VIA, YouTube, TikTok and more.
Opening the door to celebrate Afrikaans video content wherever it's found won't make kykNET seem smaller or ever lead to "the others" stealing all of the prizes - in fact, it will make kykNET appear even bigger, more gracious, more supportive and something like the Silwerskerm Awards for TV and Film even more credible and representative of everything Afrikaans TV.
It was already quite encouraging how multiple people who present shows on SABC2 and VIA and who make shows for SABC2 and VIA and are producers and executives behind the scenes actually attended the 1st Silwerskerm Awards for TV and Film on Saturday night.
Their content might not have been "eligible" but they were there, are there and they're all working towards the same common goal: the Afrikaans TV viewer and content consumer.
They deserve the same recognition for wherever deserving work is done and kykNET sprinkling the TV fairy-dust when it comes to award prizes a little bit wider will further enhance kykNET's stature but also benefit Afrikaans television in its broadest form even more.