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The seventh version of the Joburg Movie Pageant got here to a detailed Saturday evening, bringing an finish to a busy week that noticed the pageant and its parallel trade occasion, JBX, make strides in establishing themselves as what pageant founder Timothy Mangwedi is set to remodel into “the primary pop-culture, must-attend occasion in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Throughout the three-day JBX, or Joburg Xchange, representatives of the South African and international display screen industries explored methods to bolster cross-border collaboration, wrestled with thorny points involving copyright legislation, AI and staff’ rights, and sought to make sure that African narratives stay within the fingers of African storytellers. In the meantime, a full-day program offered in collaboration with Sisters Working in Movie and Tv (SWIFT) showcased the advances made by girls within the South African display screen industries whereas highlighting how a lot stays to be accomplished on the highway to gender parity.

Listed here are six of Selection’s key takeaways from a spirited week in Johannesburg: 

Made in Joburg

The theme of this yr’s JBX — “made in Joburg for Africa and the world” — highlights the occasion’s efforts to place Johannesburg as a key driver in South Africa’s display screen industries. “We wished to create the primary pop-culture, must-attend occasion in sub-Saharan Africa,” stated Joburg Movie Pageant chief Timothy Mangwedi, whose broader aim is to make the three-day confab a transformative software “to develop the TV and movie trade in Africa.”

Whereas the native trade is struggling (extra on that beneath), Netflix reiterated its dedication to South African storytellers at an occasion celebrating a brand new partnership between the streaming big and the pageant. “Joburg — my favourite metropolis on the planet — and the larger Gauteng province play an important function within the development of the native movie trade,” stated Ben Amadasun, the streamer’s VP of content material within the Center East and Africa. Amadasun highlighted a variety of Netflix originals filmed in Johannesburg, together with the upcoming six-part drama collection “GO!,” insisting that the streamer’s doing its half “to place Joburg on the map.”

South Africans sound the alarm

As Selection reported this week from Johannesburg, South African filmmakers are up in arms over their beleaguered money rebate system, with the Dept. of Commerce, Trade and Competitors (DTIC) — the federal government physique tasked with overseeing the rebate — on the hook for untold tens of millions of {dollars} in unpaid claims. Aggrieved filmmakers say the DTIC has saved them at the hours of darkness over the delays, and trade our bodies, who just lately marched on the the division’s places of work within the capital of Pretoria, delivered a memorandum outlining a listing of calls for — chief amongst them resolving money owed which have put many manufacturing firms to the brink of chapter.

In the meantime, Cape City’s manufacturing companies trade is attempting to climate the storm by banking on its popularity for delivering world-class bang on your buck, with Marisa Sonemann-Turner, COO of Movie Afrika, telling Selection her group has now “moved away from the reliance on the rebate [in negotiations] and centered extra on the worth for cash that we are able to provide,” highlighting South Africa’s comparatively low manufacturing prices and favorable trade charge. In an trade well-known for its resilience, native filmmakers are nonetheless attempting to remain upbeat, with Nomsa Philiso, CEO of normal leisure for MultiChoice, insisting: “Individuals are very optimistic. Nobody is dropping out.”

Trump’s lengthy shadow

With a South African billionaire pushing broadly discredited conspiracy theories within the White Home and U.S. President Trump amplifying these falsehoods, attendees on the Joburg Movie Pageant have been painfully conscious that the ability of storytelling may simply as simply be employed to do hurt as an alternative of fine. South African actor and filmmaker Mmabatho Montsho was amongst these calling out the “revisionist historical past” being promoted by the rightwing Afrikaner group AfriForum, whose lies a couple of “genocide” in opposition to white Afrikaner farmers prompted Trump to supply that group political asylum. “There has by no means been a second in our lives as essential and as necessary as this second,” stated filmmaker Vusi Africa (“Surviving Gaza”), who blamed the “whitewashing of South African historical past” for permitting “radical organizations like AfriForum to distort the narrative.”

Additionally this week, Oscar-nominated Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck (“I Am Not Your Negro”) blasted the Trump administration for dismantling the alliances which have bolstered the post-war political order, placing tens of millions of lives in danger. “We’re within the fingers of a bunch of loopy individuals who have an agenda that was completely written out in Challenge 2025, the identical method that Hitler wrote ‘Mein Kampf,’” Peck informed Selection. “All of it was there to learn, and everyone thought he was making a joke. No. They’re making use of what they stated they have been going to do.”

Crossing borders

Whereas the Joburg occasion was designed to foster pan-African collaboration and dialogue, all agree that extra work must be accomplished, with Terrence Khumalo, of South Africa’s Nationwide Movie and Video Basis (NFVF), noting that the majority African producers are extra centered on co-producing with Europe and America than one another. “We’re nonetheless pondering alongside colonial traces,” he stated. “We solely meet a couple of times [a year] in Cannes, Berlin. It’s solely exterior of the continent. We have to see an enchancment.” Whereas few African international locations have signed formal co-production treaties with one another, Khumalo harassed how filmmakers in international locations like Nigeria and Kenya have leveraged personal fairness to work with South African companions.

In the meantime, Unathi Malunga, of the South African Display screen Federation (SASFED), famous how trade our bodies throughout the continent are taking a look at measures just like the African Continental Free Commerce Settlement to assist facilitate cross-border collaboration, lobbying round points equivalent to work visas and import duties for movie gear. “We’re involved with creating an surroundings that’s conducive for producers to thrive,” she stated.

An AI battle looms

AI is “coming whether or not we prefer it or not,” documentary filmmaker Thandi Davids harassed this week at JBX, and it’s crucial that African creators are a part of the dialog. “As individuals are feeding the machines within the International North,” she stated, Africans should make it possible for they’re “contributing to AI with our visuals, our pictures, our shared historical past.” On the coverage degree, the battle is simply starting. “Lawmakers are all the time enjoying catch-up to technological developments,” stated SASFED’s Malunga, who famous that authorities our bodies “wish to ignore the [film and TV] sector” when crafting legal guidelines that might have an effect on hundreds of livelihoods. Trade guilds have already begun lobbying to make sure policymakers have a transparent understanding of how “AI impacts the entire worth chain,” Malunga added, insisting: “[They’re] not going to disregard us this time.”

Whereas it’s unclear how quickly South African officers will create a much-needed regulatory framework — “Our copyright act has been in overview for round 18 years,” famous producer Marc Schwinges — Identified Associates CEO Tshepiso Chikapa-Phiri was amongst those that stated they’re “unsure that [legislators are] going to reply in the best method.” The trade has no alternative however to maneuver ahead within the meantime, with Schwinges noting: “We’ve to just accept it. We’ve to embrace it. We’ve to work with it as greatest we are able to.”

African tales informed by African storytellers

Jennifer Okafor-Iwuchukwu, a literary and expertise supervisor previously with CAA, recalled driving down Sundown Blvd. just lately and seeing a billboard for “Categorised,” Prime Video’s teen drama set in a South African boarding college. “That’s by no means occurred earlier than,” Okafor-Iwuchukwu stated this week at JBX. Certainly, whereas it wasn’t way back that Marvel’s “Black Panther” — a Hollywood blockbuster filmed in Atlanta a couple of fictional African nation — was seen as a watershed second for African creatives, a greater bellwether may very well be “The Black E-book,” an independently financed motion thriller from Nigeria that cracked Netflix’s prime 10 in dozens of nations.

Okafor-Iwuchukwu cited the movie for example of “ensuring that our tales are going to be informed in probably the most genuine method potential,” highlighting the problem for African storytellers at a time when there are extra pathways to worldwide success than ever earlier than. “What are your cultural roots and the way will you keep true to them whereas interesting to that international viewers?” she requested. South African director Vusi Africa (“Surviving Gaza”), in the meantime, known as on his fellow filmmakers to make films “that carry our hope, that carry who we’re, that carry our historical past and that drive us on to maneuver ahead,” including: “We’ve a really nice duty on our shoulders to…inform the story of Africa to the world.”

The Joburg Movie Pageant runs March 11 – 16.