For this edition of the Andani blog, we delve into the fascinating world of film and television in South Africa, exploring the intricate dynamics that often go unnoticed—those behind the camera. Our journey has been initiated by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), who commissioned Andani.Africa to undertake the task of understanding the extent of transformation within this vibrant industry. The insights shared by our research participants have been instrumental in paving the way for a comprehensive exploration. So, fasten your seatbelts as we embark on a trip through the remarkable stories and invaluable contributions of film and tv practitioners behind the scenes.
A Snapshot of the changing dynamics of film and TV
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) 2022 Transformation Report was a broad-based temperature check for the positions and considerations of transformation in the film industry at the time. The report’s primary findings addressed questions such as definitions of transformation, understanding the role of government in transformation and potential for further transformation. Importantly this report also looked to use comparative data from the past to assess the degree of change over time.
Some of what we see is significant growth in the sector, including:
– international visibility of South African film and TV content has boomed in the past few years, with increased viewership from across the world.
– A 300% increase in employment of black practitioners in the film and TV sector.
Access and Decision making
We also learned a lot about the challenges of where transformation has been strong, particularly as regards age and gender. But also where challenges still remain.
We know, for example, that transformed companies are more active in pre-production, production and to some degree also in post-production. However, there is a lower representation of transformed companies in the arena of distribution. This means that at the point of market access, we see transformed companies have less participation (see graphic above).
Among individuals we see similar trends, where women and black practitioners have more influence around creative decisions, than they do around financial decisions (see graphic below). Black film and TV practitioners indicated that they had a significant role in creative decisions, more than their white counterparts who responded to the survey. Women, however, still trail behind men in decision making across all major decision making areas in film and television – pointing to a significant area of required transformation.
Sustaining transformation
A very important finding of the research was that companies headed by transformed leadership, have more transformed staff. Black-owned companies, for example, were three times more likely to employ a significant proportion of women than white-owned companies of the same size (see graphic above). This indicates that transformation is a sustainable practice when conducted at the point of leadership and ownership.
While transformed companies are playing this important role, they are still very susceptible to market shocks. And this has a big impact on the sustainability of transformation. During the pandemic, black-owned companies were much harder hit than their white-owned counterparts within similar turnover brackets – a 77% decrease in turnover for black-owned companies as compared to an 18% decrease in turnover for white owned companies of a similar size (see graph below).
So what’s next for transformation in film and TV?
The research made a number of recommendations to address issues arising from the data. These include:
1. A shared and collective transformation framework with a clear definition of what transformation means for all the film and TV industry – we cannot agree on transformation goals if we do not agree on what transformation looks like.
2. Coordinate film and TV funding initiatives and streamline these towards growth of small to medium business and sustainability of bigger transformed businesses.
3. Develop, enable and fund an international market strategy that supports transformation in the distribution arena of film and television. This should include a better understanding of potential market possibilities for South African film and TV.
