by Thinus Ferreira
Ninety-nine years since The Rotunda in Camps Bay was built in 1904, the movers, shakers and moviemakers in South Africa's film biz will once again descend from today on the oldest single-story dome construction in Cape Town for kykNET's 11th Silwerskermfees film festival held in Cape Town.
The Bay Hotel's glass-lined azure pool, ensconced just beyond the palm-tree-lined Victoria Road, once again beckons the wide array of new and longtime film and TV industry professionals who are all coming together to network, pitch, watch new films and series, talk shop and take tentative steps towards possible dealmaking while the first spring rains sift from the Cape Town sky.
As the most visitors yet for this annual film festival - held under the aegis of MultiChoice and M-Net's Afrikaans content division - gather this week at the seaside resort suburb colloquially called "Cannes in Cape Town", a lot of the hubbub at the Silwerskermfees this year is around its pivot to broaden and include television.
While TV's wheelers and dealers have always been present at the Silwerskermfilmfees, kykNET is formally incorporating TV into its weeklong schedule for the first time this year, similar to how the Berlin International Film Festival and others globally have given a window at their festivals to the big and small screen alike.
In a first, festivalgoers and the media will get to attend screenings of three TV pilots of upcoming series on kykNET and MultiChoice's Showmax streamer: Die Brug, Juffrou X and Spinners.
Spinners for instance - a gritty Cape Flats set drama series about a teenager motor car racer trying to escape a culture of gang violence - as a Showmax Original co-production with Canal+, is the first such type of co-production of its kind in South Africa.
"Several of the big festivals have expanded to include TV," Nicola van Niekerk, MultiChoice's head of premium content and co-productions, tells TVwithThinus.
"Something like SXSW ("South by Southwest") in Austin, Texas is the idea and direction we want to take the Silwerskermfees and what we want to grow it into in the future."
"SXSW is for movies, documentaries, for TV, for digital content - it's a content creator market and that's what we're moving towards with Silwerskerm - for anything made and done in Afrikaans. For all of that kykNET is planting and raising the flag."
No film festival remains static, says Waldimar Pelser, M-Net director for premium channels, who tells TVwithThinus he's looking forward to seeing the reaction from festivalgoers to this year's expanded content slate.
"We remain committed to film but have expanded into including short documentary films. It's the first time we're moving beyond scripted at the fest and I'm looking forward to seeing whether there are local filmmakers seeing a future for themselves within this genre."
"The other expansion is to selectively include TV as part of the festival," he says.
"Our dream is - as has been the case with the film festival over the past decade - to look back a few years from now and be able to point to producers and other talent who will then be making shows for kykNET and other places, who were able to benefit from mentorship at the festival or got help to compile something like a pitch deck for their proposals."
Pitching support in big demand
At the year's film fest, a master class on directing, as well as multiple sessions and workshops - including specific "pitch to us" sessions for drama series, documentaries, as well as reality and entertainment - all offering help for how to properly do better pitches - have all been fully booked for weeks before the start of the festival today.
"If I had a rand for every producer who's said to me 'We've submitted so many pitches and we constantly just get no upon no I would be a millionaire by now," says Nicola.
"Everybody wants to make television. We see about 2 000 submissions at M-Net per month. If your pitch document and how you're telling your story within those first few pages are not done correctly, you're lessening your chances tremendously to be successful."
"We just thought about these people submitting time and time after time and they're not successful - yet they have everything that's needed and required. But they don't know how a proper pitch document is supposed to look. They don't know how to talk during a pitch meeting and how to sell their idea."
"We thought: Let's start to help the wider industry with this as well because eventually it will help everyone. Otherwise you keep getting no, no, no from people and there's no growth."
Nicola says kykNET and the wider industry are looking for new talent.
"We thought: Let us help up-and-coming talent to enable them to communicate their ideas better to executives. It's exactly because it is so difficult that people are so interested in attending the Silwerskermfees to come and learn how to be better at it."
Nicola says the 11th Silwerskermfees will definitely be the biggest one yet in terms of attendees.
"We've registered more people than ever before. That we're opening it up to television as well, is bringing even more people into the fold. In 10 years of this festival we've never had a waiting list before which we have this year for the first time."
SA film biz is alive with possibilities
"That there are five new feature-length films in Afrikaans making their debut at this year's 11th Silwerskermfees is an absolute blessing for the industry and for viewers," says Nicola van Niekerk.
"With some, it was down to the line that some might not have been ready in time. I'm just so glad about the quality. We also tried to build and establish some new business models around these films so that it's worthwhile for everyone," she says.
"What people don't realise - and what remains challenging - is for Afrikaans films to get made in South Africa. Afrikaans consumers have always been very loyal, going to the cinema to go and watch and support Afrikaans film. But with the Covid pandemic that machine broke," she explains.
For her, kykNET's Silwerskermfees film festival continues to help create buzz and to build excitement around the intangible quality of perception that South Africa's industry remains vibrant and worthwhile.
"The Silwerskerm film festival brings people together and focuses the excitement about making film and television, and how great it is to work in film and television in South Africa despite its many challenges," she says.
"Something like Silwerskerm helps to keep the local film biz alive - not just Afrikaans film but the entire spectrum of the value chain. It keeps it going."
"It's also a showcase for the global biz of what South Africa has and can do - to show the world that they can come here and film and do their projects here," she says.
"We have everything that's needed. We've built it. We've created it. We're not resting on our laurels. South Africa's film industry exists and the Silwerskermfees is the showcase that it's alive."
