The Africa by Women project has resulted in 10 short films that deal with different facets of life in the country 20 years after democracy. Walk on to a typical film set at lunch to see all you need to know about the South African industry, says Zandile Tisani, a University of Cape Town film and media graduate who made her directorial debut in 2012 on Zaki Ibrahim's Go With It music video.At the time she was a freelance stylist working on films and commercials. There are a few tokens and exceptions but usually there's a table for the directors and producers - white men. The art department and wardrobe, usually white women, will sit together. Then your manpower and muscle, the grips, are black men at another table. You'd find me at the white table feeling awkward as hell. That's the reality.
At the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) Indaba held last year, the then arts and culture minister, Paul Mashatile, said: There is a need to fast-track transformation in the sector with regard to ownership of production companies. We must also continue to invest in the development of skills required by the industry.
The indaba included an announcement of a new partnership between the NFVF and the department of women, children and people with disabilities to provide sign language at NFVF training programmes and bursaries for documentary filmmakers with disabilities.
At the same indaba, NFVF chief executive Zama Mkosi said that transformation and the development of talent in the field remains a key challenge for the industry, mentioning the Africa by Women project and a parallel Youth Filmmakers Project as direct responses to those needs.
Project 10
In 2004 the NFVF was involved with the Project 10 documentary series. In celebration of the first decade of democracy, the SABC commissioned 10 documentary films by up-and-coming directors. Of the 10, nine happened to be women.
For this year's anniversary to celebrate 20 years of democracy, the NFVF put out a call in June 2013 for female filmmakers exclusively and announced the winners of 10 film grants for fictional shorts in August that year. Tisani was one of the recipients.
Filmmakers were briefed to generate content for the SABC and for distribution to film festivals around the world in celebration of 20 years of democracy.
The Africa by Women project coincides with a period of honest reflection by the NFVF and the department of arts and culture about the redress that is still required for the South African film industry to reflect the demographics of the country accurately. Some of these films will be screened at the Durban International Film Festival taking place from July 17 to 27.
Tisani's short film Heroes was shot last month on location in Bryanston and Westdene and is produced by Quizzical Pictures. Having met all of the NFVF's strict requirements Quizzical Pictures and Born Free Media were selected to produce five films each. This included 50% black and 100% female ownership and control, as well as all-female heads of department.
Dark comedy
Set in a middle-class suburb, just like northern Johannesburg's Kelvin where Tisani grew up, Heroes is a dark comedy that explores a white community's reaction to a black family moving into the neighbourhood in 1994.
A couple of years after we moved to Kelvin from New Brighton in Port Elizabeth in the 1980s, our neighbour told us about a meeting they'd had before our arrival to discuss how the community felt about a black family moving in, says Tisani.
The film pokes fun at what could have ensued after that meeting. Neighbourhood Watch assumes their duty to serve and protect and pure farce ensues. The action centres around the white residents but we never meet the black family that has them in such upheaval.
Tisani is quick to defend the perspective of her story. Democracy has meant that I know each of these characters so well. I'm a storyteller first and foremost and want to be able to put myself in a position where I can tell stories from multiple vantage points. I'm very aware of expectations of black female writers to tell a certain type of story that speaks directly and seriously to identity and other issues' facing us. I'm not negating those narratives; it's just really important that black women feel free to make commentary on whatever they'd like to.
On a national level, historically significant times such as the celebration of 20 years of democracy this year tend to invoke regular reference to terms such as empowerment , access and transformation, assuming some degree of shared understanding of their meaning.
Broad ideas
The same is true in discussions about the national film industry. But the past two decades have revealed a number of considerations and perspectives on how to go about coming to grips with these broad ideas.
The Economic Baseline Study conducted and released on behalf of the NFVF by Deloitte in April 2013 reports that the local film industry contributed R3.5-billion to the economy, and created 25 175 jobs in 2012. Black people hold 66% of the jobs in the industry, with the gender divisions unspecified. Such analyses offer a quantitative backdrop to the gender and racial realities of a traditionally hierarchical industry where money talks.
At the NFVF Indaba, Mashatile noted how people are hungry to hear the South African story, the African story . Tisani's comments touch on the fallout of the strong positivist national rhetoric of reconciliation, nation-building and oneness that has characterised arts and culture in our young democracy.
The South African story has tended to deal with constructing the new post-apartheid nation state, either by looking back to our troubled past or through a focus on multiculturalism, solidarity and racial integration.
The dominance of film
