Botswana to set up film commission, create film fund with help from Steve Harvey

Thinus Ferreira

Botswana's government is working to create the country's first-ever film commission, as well as a film fund, and is also busy with building out film studio capacity to rapidly expand the Southern African country's film and TV output capability.

The government is working with the American entertainer Steve Harvey and his Steve Harvey Global company, as well as Duncan Irvine, the founder and CEO of Forge Ignite Media & Entertainment, a film and TV consultancy. Irvine is the director of the Botswana Ignite project.

The aim of Botswana Ignite is to rapidly expand the country's TV and film sector, to make it commercially viable, to create local content and to aggressively attract international production work.

The project has also set up a TV academy for Botswana in the capital of Gaborone that just started offering courses in scripted and unscripted content, as well as a specialist wildlife film school in Kasane that specialises in natural history film production.

"Botswana has diamonds but we want to expand our creative industry. Steve Harvey visited and decided to help us with our vision," Goitsemang Morekisi, secretary for the ministry of state president, said at MIP Africa 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa.

"In 10 years Botswana will become one of the top film industries on the African continent," Harvey said.

"Nigeria and South Africa have a headstart by leaps and bounds in capability - make no mistake about it. They have a real film and TV industry, everything is here, they have real production companies and infrastructure - everything is here."

"What I'm trying to get Africa to understand is how to take advantage of all this rich talent that is on this continent and to get the opportunity to work," he said.

Duncan Irvine said Botswana Ignite is also helping the Botswana government to set up a governmental film rebate scheme that will be structured "to accelerate and fuel the country's film economy and for people to create production companies because local production companies in Botswana will be the engine building the next generation".

He says "Botswana has a very small but very passionate film and TV industry but it's been quite inwardly focused".

"It's been Botswana Television (Btv), YTV and that's where producers have been selling their shows to, and to South Africa in particular and some have left Botswana to go and work overseas. Part of the excitement is that we're trying to attract a lot of those experienced people back."

Steve Harvey said, "this programme we're doing here in Botswana - my goal is to take it to other countries around Africa - so that you can eventually go anywhere in Africa and be a cameraman, can go anywhere and be a set designer, you can go anywhere and do lighting".

On 12 September a Botswana adaptation of the Family Feud competition show, Family Feud Botswana, starts recording.

Steve Harvey said "next year we're going to have more studio space built. We've already located some areas and we are going to have these studios built there and then we're going to attract outside business through film tax rebates."

'The caveat is going to be: You can't bring your foreign company to Botswana unless you hire 25% local people from Botswana or else you can't do it. What are they going to say? No. They will say yes because they want the tax rebate."

Steve Harvey to produce a Family Feud South Africa and Family Feud Ghana version to broadcast from early-2020 in Africa produced by Rapid Blue.

The American entertainer Steve Harvey on Monday announced that he will be producing and hosting both a Family Feud South Africa and Family Feud Ghana version that will start broadcasting in Africa from early-2020, produced by Rapid Blue.

Steve Harvey is on a Southern Africa tour and last week visited Botswana where he promised to invest in that country's TV industry.

He's now travelled to South Africa and announced at a press conference on Monday in Johannesburg that he will be presenting Family Feud SA and a Family Feud Ghana version with South African and Ghanaian families, that is planned to debut in the first quarter of 2020.

The South African and Ghana broadcast partners are not yet known.

In Family Feud, a show that Steve Harvey started hosting in 2010 in the United States, two families compete to name the correct responses from a group of people to survey questions as they attempt to win prizes with what the most general answer was.

Steve Harvey isn't really known to South African and Africa viewers. A few seasons of his now-cancelled Steve Harvey Show talk show was first broadcast since 2012 on M-Net's M-Net Series channel after which it also started on SABC1 with M-Net moving it to Mzansi Magic from 2013.

Steve Harvey is most recognised for the implosion of his image when he made the big mistake and then went underground after he announcing the then-Miss Colombia 2016 as the winner of the Miss Universe pageant and struggled to correct it.

Family Feud South Africa will be filmed in South Africa. It's not known whether the Ghana version will be filmed in South Africa or Ghana.

The show has been seen in 50 international markets outside of the United States and will now include South Africa with Family Feud SA and Family Feud Ghana which will be the first localised African versions.

In a deal with Fremantle, Steve Harvey’s media company Steve Harvey Global acquired the format licensing rights for a South African and Ghana version of Family Feud with the South African production company Rapid Blue that will be producing it.

"Bringing Family Feud to Africa has long been a dream of mine," says Steve Harvey in a statement."I believe Family Feud will become a household name for local South African and Ghanaian families. And this is just the beginning in Africa. I expect this show to lead to multiple media and business projects in and throughout the continent."

Duncan Irvine, Rapid Blue CEO, says "Family is the cornerstone of life in South Africa and Ghana, and we are confident that we will see some wonderful families take part and that both seasons will resonate well with audiences here".

"We're planning additional projects with Steve Harvey and his team for viewers here in Africa."

The local version of Family Feud South Africa will start production in Johannesburg in the last quarter of 2019 by Rapid Blue that is part of the BBC Studios international family of production companies and works on BBC Studios Africa productions and produces shows like The Bachelor South Africa for M-Net.

The Family Feud Africa business deal was negotiated and executed by Anahita Kheder, Fremantle's senior vice president for sales and distribution for the Middle East, Africa and South Eastern Europe region; and Brandon R Williams, Steve Harvey Global's chief operating officer (COO) and chief legal officer.

"We have a longstanding relationship with Steve Harvey and once we heard about his dream of taking our iconic format to Africa, we partnered to make it a reality," says Anahita Kheder.

"Rapid Blue has been our trusted producers across the region for many years, so it made sense to join them up with Steve Harvey Global to make the local African versions of Family Feud."

'It was a nightmare' says Miss Colombia as Steve Harvey offers an emotional on-air apology on his talk show: 'I just want to say how sorry I am'.

"It was a nightmare," said Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez when she appeared on Steve Harvey's talk show as he offered an emotional on-air apology after mistakenly announcing her as the winner of Miss Universe last month, now telling her: "I just want to say how sorry I am".

"You're the one person that I really wanted to talk to," said an emotional Steve Harvey. "Because of a mistake I made, I cast you into a spotlight or place that I never intended to. That I would not want to happen to anybody."

"I just want to say how sorry I am. I'm beyond sorry for what happened that night and that it was you."

"It was like a nightmare. I was watching the videos and I couldn't believe that that happened to me. I needed time with my family. To calm down. To think what I'm going to say now, what I'm going to do now."

"I'm ready to move on. This is our destiny," she said.

"You keep making mistakes - it's 'Aria-da", nor Ariana," she told Steve Harvey. 

"You have to learn how to read cards," she said.

Ariadna Cutierrez told Steve Harvey she initially laughed and thought he was going to be making a joke. "You know, like Oprah: 'You're Miss Universe! And you're Miss Universe! Everyone is Miss Universe!"

"My concern was for the two of you. It was horrible," said Steve Harvey.