Cannes Market Dailies

South African film industry, headed by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) in partnership with Kwa-Zulu Natal Film commission (KZNFC), Durban Film Office (DFO) and WESGRO experienced another successful year at the Cannes International Film Festival. The festival commenced on the 14th of May and will run until the 25th May.

In celebrating 20 years of Freedom at the Cannes film festival to coincide with the national celebrations, the NFVF's key message was 'Attracting New Markets & Investment'. The message stood out in all activations organized by the foundation, which included co-production forums with Brazil, Canada and the United Kingdom, screening of films (iNumber Number, Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me, Minors Shot Down and One Humanity), as well as partner activations.

This year the NFVF placed additional focus on emerging filmmakers, a new generation of creative talent eager to conquer the world through their story-telling and collaborations with other countries. Among the filmmakers were 5 filmmakers who were identified to be part of Creative Minds programme, which took them through intensive producers programmes and networking opportunities. Association for Transformation in Film and TV (ATFT) also had a delegation of young filmmakers funded by the department of trade and industry (DTI) to participate at the Cannes film Festival.

Notable successes include the distribution deal that comedian / filmmaker David Kau signed with Archstone pictures to produce and distribute his film Sekwankwetla, and ‘Pad na jou Hart’ will soon be released in Australia. There were numerous successful meetings which resulted in potential deals which will soon be concluded with various South African production companies. Wandile Molebatsi of the first Africa dance film, ‘Hear me Move’ confirmed that UK and US distribution companies are also keen to distribute the film. The deals are diarised to be concluded in South Africa in the next coming months. Another SA Producer with notable success is Greig Buckle of Enigma Pictures, who will co-produce ’One’ featuring Djimon Hounsou, with international partners Main Street Films, MK Create and Kent Smith for the Kojo Group.

There was no dull moment at the SA pavilion as filmmakers from neighbouring African countries, to international territories visited the stand to interact with local filmmakers in search of South African stories, partnerships and business models. Some of these partnerships were discussed in detail at the three co-production forums organized by the NFVF.

The National Film and Video Foundation facilitates South Africa’s participation at the Cannes International Film Festival by providing a home-away-from-home environment for local filmmakers. The SA Pavilion serves as a business hub for filmmakers to conduct business meetings, interact with various stakeholders, financiers, distributors, festival directors to achieve their goals.