GENERAL INDUSTRYThe Callsheet met with the three men behind Collective Dream to discuss the future of the studios and the company’s plans going forward.

THE men behind Collec-tive Dream, the company that bought the facilities that housed Waterfront

Studios, are director Sean Else, his father-in-law, PE business-man, Danie Halgryn, and actor brother-in-law Rudy Halgryn. Sean started Mozi Records in 2005. He discovered and signed some of the biggest names in the Afrikaans mu-sic industry, including Bok van Blerk and Lianni May. Sean di-rected 2011 blockbuster Platte-land, which was financed and co-produced by Collective Dream. The company is run with Sean as creative direc-tor, Danie as the CFO and Rudy, who will act as the com-pany’s international director. The trio hit the ground running: in addition to two commer-cials, cleaning out the studios, strategising for the future and moving their lives and fami-lies to Cape Town, they also have two more feature films in pre-production.

Danie explains that it was not their intention to buy the former Waterfront Studios, “We

were going to build some-thing like this in Pretoria, and we decided we wanted to do our own post. We don’t want to have to deal with anyone else’s time schedules, so we decided to set up our own stu-dio. It was at this time some-one told us about Waterfront Studios, revealing that the company’s a business rescue, and suggesting we come and have a look at their facility as there might be equipment, or stuff for us to buy. When we ar-

rived we looked at it and we thought, ‘but we could actu-ally turn this company around’. We decided there and then to buy it free of any sort of gover-nances or liens, so we bought the equipment and then we re-rented the facility.” Rudy adds that they re-appointed staff after an extensive interview-ing process. Sean believes that having contented, produc-tive staff on board is important to them.

Since making their success-

ful bid for Waterfront Studios on 23 December 2011, Col-lective Dream has been hard at work. They have already upgraded three Flames to the latest 2012 software and are now in the process of acquir-ing a Baselight. They have also been busy with the actual stu-dios. They started work at on 3 January 2012. Sean said: “The big thing for us was to settle in quickly. The immediate need was to clean house. The studios were in a mess, so we started

working out logistics for fixing it - half of Studio 2 was a store-room, so we’ve created space for a technical workshop and a workshop for building sets and storing lights, to make it more functional and cleaner.” They have also had an architect in about a redesign of the build-ing, as they look to create a space that reflects the com-pany’s vision. Rudy added: “We did a massive Cadbury’s commercial in the first week of January. The clients are still coming to us with commer-cials and we’re able to facili-tate that. We’ve just finished another commercial.”

Sean explained that they are open to doing work across a variety of genres, saying: “The name Collective Dream is not just about making features, post, sitcoms or soaps; the space lends itself to what you want to create in it. It’s nice for us to have this facility with the post in place, with three great stages, and in a great location. With the artists we have over here and the potential any-one can come in here. With future media, we’re going to see more and more produc-tions and channels springing up. Everything starts as an idea, and here we will be able to see that through from idea to end product.”

Continued on page 16

CONTENT IS KING FOR COLLECTIVE DREAM

R22.80www.thecallsheet.co.za

pg5 pg6 pg15

Rudy, Danie and Sean

ACTING This month’s page two pin-up is actor, model and director Ru-ben Engel.

Don’t let the fact that he was a Mr South Africa runner-up in 2009 fool you, Ruben

Engel is much more than a pretty face. Ruben has act-ed in a wide variety of proj-ects and just tried his hand at directing.

Ruben reveals that he got his start in acting unexpected-ly in his teens, “I got seduced into it rather sneakily. I was just doing admin as a holiday job for the project based theatre production company my fa-ther managed called Project Phakama at the age of 15. After seeing what they were doing in the workshop rehears-als I was on floor after the second day.”

He started modeling at age 17, when he signed up with Y Models. His model-ing work saw him appear in commercials, fashion shows and editorials.

He went on to earn a BA in theatre directing from UCt in 2003. He has starred in several plays, including productions of Rosencrantz and Guilden-stern and Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter.

Ruben has made appear-

ances in international produc-tions shooting in South Africa including: The Italian Consul, The Ambassador and Pirates. In Pirates, he played Sa-laam, a Somalian pirate who frees hostages.

Ruben plays Winston Phil-lips, ward councilor and hus-band to Dalene Phillips (Chan-tal Stanfield), on the SABC 1 drama series Montana.

the actor approaches his work with care and fore-thought, and says he ap-proached film and television roles differently, “With televi-sion roles I allow my characters to be more accessible to the viewers as they are more gen-eral in demographic. With film one can explore and express much more intimate aspects of a character within the world of the story as your viewers are likely to be more engaged with the contexts of the film.”

Ruben is currently rehears-ing with Akin omotoso for a leading role in upcoming fea-ture film Tell Me Sweet Some-thing, which starts shooting in June 2012. He will play oppo-site Jozi star Lindiwe Matzikiza and Sdumo Matjali.

the busy actor has recently been trying his hand at direc-tion, with compelling results. His first short, starring his TV wife Chantal and Brendon Dan-iels, is a glossy short film called Coke Town.

He also directed a mu-sic video for SAMA nominee Ernie B St. Clair for his track Floors on Fire. When asked about the future, Ruben said: “At the end of this year I plan on directing my next film, this time a 48 minuter as opposed to Coke Town which will cut at 15 minutes and premieres this Autumn.”

Ruben has a busy year ahead of him, starting in March when he will be the MC for the Mr South Africa 2012 finals in Gauteng.

He has also signed a five music video contract with various artists for Stereotype Records where he will creative produce all of them, direct three of them and bring in two directors, cinematographers and editors.

Ruben has firm ideas about the challenges facing the local creative industries surrounding film, television and theatre. He said: “It is high time we devel-op a stronger sense of com-munity within Cape town. We need more networking events on different creative platforms, including fashion, music an art. We have the most talent-ed people in this country but no support among each other. only when we start coming to-gether as creatives will we find more all round support from our local public, supporting local art.”

PAGE TWO PIN-UP: RUBEN ENGEL

02 | the Cal lsheet

The Cal lsheet | 03

ANIMATIONBrad Stilwell is the guy many South african animators wish they were – the nicest, most talented guy who built a great career locally and made it big internationally – working with animal Logic on Legends of the Guardians and more recently on aardman’s latest stop-motion The Pirates!

LiezeL Vermeulen caught up with Brad shortly after his re-turn to Cape Town.

3d has always been your pas-sion - how can a range of expe-riences help build a successful career?i sTarTed out editing broadcast promos and doccies, moved into 3D, compositing and finally came into my own as a Gen-eralist/CG/Comp artist on fea-

tures. My generalist experience gave me a bit of an edge and i could compete abroad against specialists, even though i started working on features relatively late. This will be even more rel-evant in future as large shops ‘trim the fat’ in pursuit of more efficient workflows.

Tell us about Legends of the Guardians, The Owls of Ga’Hoole, which did really well with interna-tional box office earnings of $140 million. i was in one of four lighting teams of between 12 and 15 people each. That’s a lot of peo-ple but it was a very intense film in terms of lighting and rendering. we were responsible for lighting multiple layers in multiple passes and then comping the shot in Nuke. The art director was Grant Freckleton (300, Matrix, Harry Potter) and i learnt more about crafting a good looking shot in

dailies sessions than ever before. i saw my own work improve just by being there.

What can we learn about running a successful studio from animal Logici was a small part in a very big company but i felt free to do my best work. i think every single person in this industry does what they do because they aspire to know the joy of creating some-thing beautiful. and if a com-pany makes it possible, or gives an artist such an opportunity, then that company can only succeed. when i started at aL i was surprised with how much responsibility i was given. i was required to final comp in mono and stereo, on my first feature, but i felt empowered because of the faith the producers put in me.

and then you moved to aard-man, to work as a lighting techni-cal director on The Pirates! Band of MisfitsaardMaN was a little less techni-cal than aL. where aL used their own script based render submis-sion system, aardman use ren-derman Pro/studio. Pirates was Aardman’s first feature in-house so it was a brand new pipeline. i worked closely with Chris King who wrote the most amazing ocean shader. it was a complex series of shaders working with a Nuke script. it was a real eye opener for me to see the level that UK studios go to to get the

results they require. i was a light-ing Td but did some FX like fog and mist, quite a bit of water, and plenty comp work. The pup-pets and the ship were stop mo-tion so we were required to inte-grate the CG elements like water and spray and fog into the live action plates.

What can we learn from aardman? i doN’T think there’s anything we can’t learn from aardman. watch their movies. it’s all there: characters, story, style, humour. aardman is successful because they’re true to their heritage, to who they are. we also need to find our stories, our voice; then we too can be like the Brits: dry, but cool.

Can you comment on long form work specifically - where does SA find itself compared to the global arenawe need to ask ourselves what exactly we are trying to achieve. are we building a service industry for established western markets? or establish ourselves as a type of Hollywood where we produce tent-pole productions? i think the odds are stacked against us ei-ther way. instead we should aim to achieve two things: working together to stabilise the industry, and focusing on producing afri-can stories.

There’s a lot energy in Cape Town and Jozi, the industry in flux. it’s an exciting time but it doesn’t

make for an attractive invest-ment destination. it just doesn’t make people want to bring their movies here. stability and cohe-sion does.

if we want feature work then we should try pitching for work together. we need to develop infrastructure that can accom-modate collaboration, quit competing with each other and start competing with foreign countries. in terms of our own stories, i think, like aardman, we should work on telling stories that are unique to us. we should be growing our heritage, our own humour. This is our competitive edge on the world stage.

we also need to get more work. i’m back here with some great new skills and heaps of ideas and energy but i have yet to find a project to work on. This is something we as an industry should be aware of. if there is no reason for our talent to stay then they won’t. we need to feed our talent in order for it to grow.

Liezel Vermeulen

AN ANIMATOR ABROAD

04 | The Cal lsheet

Legends of the Guardians, The Owls of Ga’Hoole

Brad Stilwell

FEATURE FILMS EtiEnnE Fourie is to have his final student project Die Windpomp produced by Zen HQ.

Making movies is a tough business to crack. But if you have real talent, and a will

to succeed, then there’s a good chance merit will favour you with a helping hand, one that may well bring your ideas to life allow-ing you to share them with world. For Etienne Fourie, a recent aFDa honours graduate and student film award winner, that’s exactly what’s happened.

it was during late 2011 when Etienne’s work caught the atten-tion of local producer Chris Ro-land (Zen-HQ). Chris had for the past three years been a guest lecturer at aFDa, “in 2011 i was more involved than previously, leading the producers master class and then judging third and fourth year AFDA films this past November. This is where I first saw Die Windpomp, at the public screenings at Ster kinekor.”

Die Windpomp is the title of Etienne’s fourth year graduation film that deals with the dilemma of old age remedied through the classic fantasy of the “fountain of youth”. “My biggest fear has always been old age, the idea of having regrets and being in no position to remedy it frightens me more than anything. Creat-ing characters in such positions

and then giving them the tools and opportunities to actively do something about it, helps me sleep at night.”

The 48-minute afrikaans short film was made on a shoestring budget during 2011. in many ways it defies the typical stu-dent film formula, opting rather for a cleverly crafted character driven story with well-rounded performances. The evolution of the film from short to feature was almost a given. “i always imag-ined the story would end up be-ing a novel, so right from the start the world had much more to it and the characters had much more to say than the short film really allowed.”

The original cast and crew have been called back to con-tinue work on the extended ver-sion, something Chris and Etienne agreed upon from beginning. “The success of Die Windpomp was not merely because of the efforts of one or two people, but everyone involved. i have to mention the cinematographer Johan Prinsloo, who was there for all of it. It is a very thrilling experi-ence to allow the original crew the opportunity to be a part of the film now and be rewarded for their hard work.”

For producer Chris Roland it offered a chance to expand on an existing world without the rigorous process of adapting it in to a feature length film. “To our benefit there is already 48 min-utes which is bought and paid

for, of which we will use about 40 minutes. This makes the film very attractive from a financing and recoupment POV as it cuts costs by about half. The remain-ing financing is a combination of DTi, distributor advance, private equity and deferments.”

Chris is actively developing local films through his My Movies initiative and he feels that, “local films require financing structures that creatively integrate soft monies in order to reduce expo-sure and risk.” according to Chris there needs to be a combination of great storytellers and finance engineers, something we active-ly possess in South africa but now need to develop.

This does not draw atten-tion away from the fact that Die Windpomp is a student film that was well received by its peers and has subsequently been nominated for a Student Oscar at this year’s awards. (The cer-emony will take place in June at the academy for Motion Picture Sciences in Los angeles). it shows the strength of character this sto-ry possesses and the reason why american born Chris had this to say mere moments after seeing the film for the first time, “For an american to connect with an af-rikaans story the way that i have is remarkable… i bloody cried just now.” although young and fairly inexperienced, Etienne un-derstands and has embraced the task at hand and appreci-ates that Chris recognises that,

Die Windpomp wasn’t a lucky mistake, but the passionate la-bours of a handful of dedicated people. Etienne plans to further his career with an ambition to make films he’d want to see. “I am currently involved on a few feature projects as screenwriter, two of which is for Regardt van den Bergh. My next project will likely be Die Sonskynkinders (The Sunshine Children).

Die Windpomp feature film is

due for release in September in South africa and may travel to the Toronto Film Festival during that time as well. Chris feels, “the film will do well on the festival cir-cuit and enjoy moderate DVD and TV sales in north america and Europe.” as for the young di-rector, with a career starter such as this, one can only imagine what lies ahead for a filmmaker both of merit and now of fame.

Jasyn Howes

MERIT FAVOURS DIE WINDPOMP

The Cal lsheet | 05

Die Windpomp

Die Windpomp

CAPE WINELANDS FILM FESTIVAL

The 2012 Cape Winelands Film Festival (CWFF) is proud to again present an unparalleled window on quality films from around the globe.

The rich selection of world cinema includes more than 150 features, documenta-ries and shorts, all of which

have won more than 320 inter-national awards. The majority of films will have their South African premieres at the CWFF.

The fifth edition will take place from 14-24 March 2012 at various venues in Cape Town and Stellenbosch: Artscape, The Fugard Theatre, Nu Metro (Wa-terfront), the Protea hotel Fire & Ice (Bree Street), as well as the beautiful winelands setting of Oude Libertas (Stellenbosch). The programme includes out-standing features, documenta-ries and shorts from more than 48 countries. The festival remains an important forum for South African cinema and include the work by 37 South African film-makers. highlights that will feature at the festival are: Otelo Burning, An-derkant die Stilte and Casting Me, powerful documentaries such as Forerunners, TAC: Taking HAART and The Cradock Four, as well as two sensitive films about the South African Border War, Bokser and Pro Patria. Another lo-cal highlight is the special screen-ing of the pilot episode of Johan Cronje’s vibrant Afrikaans TV se-ries Strikfontein.

The festival opens on 14 March 2012 with the screening of the multi-award winning South African feature Lucky. The Open-ing Night, hosted by the Mayor of Cape Town in the Opera house (Artscape) will be a Black Tie event and the first Green Carpet

at a film festival in South Africa displaying Cape Town’s commit-ment to protecting the environ-ment. After playing to packed audiences at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, Busan Film Festival (2011), Bangalore Film Festival (2011), and Abu Dhabi Film Festival (2011), where it was featured in the festival’s Waterfront Films open-air the-atre, Lucky will have its African and South African Premiere at the 2012 Cape Winelands Film Festival. how could a recently orphaned, 10-year old home-less South African boy ever be called Lucky? Over the grave of his mother, Lucky makes a prom-ise to make something of himself. Leaving the security of his re-mote Zulu village for the big city with the hope of going to school, he arrives on the doorstep of an uncle who has no use for him. Lucky meets with an elderly Indi-an woman with an inherent fear of Africans, who takes him in as she would a stray dog. Together, unable to speak each other’s language, they develop an unlikely bond.

The festival will focus on sev-eral themes, these include: The lives of children and teenagers; a better understanding between human beings; and celebrat-ing past achievements. Lucky is one of several films at the festival, which depict the experiences of children and teenagers, from sensitive coming of age films such as Tomboy and North Sea Texas to the traumatic lives of children in war zones in a mas-terpiece such as Son of Babylon, as well as How I was stolen by the Germans and Apartment in Athens. In order to highlight tolerance and understanding between people of different cul-tures, the festival will also screen Films such as Out in the Silence, Insects in the Backyard, Family Portrait in Black and White, Cher-

kess (from Jordan) , It’s Getting Better, Captor and Captive – the story of Danger Ashipala and Jo-han van der Mescht, Our School, Salam Rugby (about Iranian fe-male rugby players) and Colors. Once again great achievements from cinema’s long, rich history will be celebrated in the form of a focus on the work by Spanish auteur Carlos Saura and a tribute to Theo Angelopoulos, who died on 24 January 2012.

This year’s festival will also in-clude a special tribute to Koos Roets, considered the greatest South African cinematographer of his generation. Since the 1970s Roets had received numerous awards and universal praise for his cinematography for many features including Somer (1975). Based on a novel by C. M. van den Heever, the film focuses on a love triangle against the glorious pastoral beauty of the Eastern Free State highlands. Roets perfectly captures the lush landscapes during the magic hour and especially achieves brilliance in the sequence when the wheat fields are destroyed by a hailstorm. Other features such as Pappa Lap, Eendag op ‘n Reëndag, Paljas and Die Storie van Klara Viljee benefited from brilliant cinematography by Koos Roets.

Focus on the environment and Green CarpetONCe again the festival includes a strong focus on the environ-ment and highlights include the

documentary Raising Resis-tance. The ground in Paraguay is perfect for the cultivation of soy. In recent years, count-less acres of forest have been chopped down to make room for the growing of this protein-rich bean. The land of a farmer named Geronimo is now com-pletely surrounded by soy plan-tations. These are generously sprayed with pesticides – poison that only the genetically modi-fied soy plants are immune to. Unfortunately, the pesticides spread farther than the bound-aries of the soy fields. So not only is there less and less land for the campesinos, or local farmers like Geronimo, but it also becomes impossible for them to cultivate healthy crops themselves. In Raising Resistance, co-directors Bettina Borgfeld and David Ber-net capture the campesinos as they revolt against the enormous soy business in their country. Led by the ever-friendly Geronimo, they squat a section of farm-land, try to stop the spraying of pesticides, and make their voic-es heard in the media. The film-makers also give the floor to the large landowners.

A celebration of cultureSEVERAL documentaries also celebrate and explore the rich cultural expressions by a diversi-ty of artists from Jordan (Hip Hop Nafitha), South Africa (Mama Africa, Mama Goema), Brazil (Samba Beats), the DRC (Kinsha-sa Symphony), the former Yugo-

slavia (Cinema Komunisto), Iran (Pearls on the Ocean Floor) and Poland (Komeda, a fascinating documentary about Krzysztof Komeda, who wrote the mu-sic for Polanski’s films including Rosemary’s Baby).

Sponsors and partnershipsONCe again various sponsors, media partners and individuals ensured the continuation of the festival and we thank the follow-ing partners of their invaluable contributions and commitment to the CWFF: Distell and Oude Libertas; The City of Cape Town; The Office of the Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Western Cape Investment and Trade Promotion Agency (WESGRO), The Department of Finance, economic Development and Tourism (Western Cape Provin-cial Government)., the Protea hotel Fire and Ice Cape Town; The Mandela Rhodes Place, Nu Metro Theatres, The Fugard Theatre, ARTSCAPE, CityVarsity, Consul General of Brazil in Cape Town, The Embassy of Spain, The Flemish Government Represen-tative, Prof. Martin Botha from the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, The Callsheet.

More details about the CWFF2012 will be made pub-lic on the official website of the Cape Winelands Film Festival (http://films-for-africa.co.za/), as well as the Facebook Group and Page.

CAPE WINELANDS FILM FESTIVAL 2012

06 | The Cal lsheet

Baba

Cherkess

Kinshasa Symphony

North Sea Texas

The Cal lsheet | 07

STUDENTSThe Callsheet profiles some of the top students from institu-tions around the country.

Speelman Mabena (Big Fish - JHB)Speelman developed an inter-est in the arts when he joined the Bambanani Theatre group 2001. In 2004 he started his own theatre company. Speelman was the producer and director of several documentaries in his time at Big Fish, they include No Hands Land; A God Given Gift and The Healing Process “Lala kahle Mama”.Speelman is currently doing a drama course at Big Fish.

On his hopes for the future, he said: “I would like to be well-known in the film industry so I can make South african stories that speak to all South africans, especially those from where I come from - Witbank emalahleni mpumalanga.”

Michel Dujardin (City Varsity)mIchel is currently develop-ing two feature films and is also keeping busy with a music video and two commercials. michel says: Filmmaking was a passion from an early age, it all started when my dad showed me behind-the-scenes docu-mentaries, and I was utterly as-tounded by the power of the camera to change reality and

make the impossible come true.” When asked about his future, michel says: “What I want to do? Feature films. nothing more, nothing less.”

Lukhanyo Nakho (Nemisa)nemISa top student, lukhan-yo, says he was always inter-ested in film as he is a natural storyteller. he hopes to use his qualification to educate peo-ple and change the world.

lukhanyo is currently work-ing in the transfer and ingest department at mnet Super-sport as an intern, but says he hopes to move to a more creative department. When asked about his hopes for the future, lukhanyo said: “I am hoping to tell more stories in form of documentaries and films, and to be counted as one of the best young black filmmakers in Africa. I want to work with the big names of the film industry because I would

learn a lot from them on how to be a successful filmmaker. now I am working for a com-pany and the plan is to even-tually Start my own production house and empower other young people who want to be in this industry.”

Ross Campbell (SAE)Sae student Ross campbell decided to follow his dream of studying film at age 40. He is busy with a number of proj-ects, saying: “I’m currently doing a mixture of things: I’ve been a drummer for over 24 years (Urban creep, Fetish) and am now playing for Far-ryl purkiss, Simon Van Gend, Benguela, coal and Red earth & Rust.

“I also teach drums. Right now I am typesetting three english language text books, editing a music video for coal, preparing a promo video for the launch of Red earth’s third

album at the Fugard and have some editing work for lisa chait’s Lifestories coming up.”

When asked about his fu-ture plans, Ross said: “I’m plan-ning to move more into video editing for my main source of income, but it’s not easy starting something new when you’re older and need half-decent paying work straight away. Ultimately though I’m wanting to write and direct movies, I think we need more “independent” films being made - the likes of claire an-gelique and Oliver hermanus.”

Phumlani Veto (Big Fish - Cape Town)phUmlanI grew up hoping to be an actress, When she learned more about acting and the related industries, she decided to pursue a ca-reer as a director instead. She said: “In matric, I entered a short film competition in Port elizabeth and my script was produced into an eight min-ute drama, ever since then I abandoned my acting dream and called myself a direc-tor. After that I applied to film schools and all of them were private with no bursary offers, then I heard of Big Fish School of Digital Filmmaking, where they offer scholarships to po-tential candidates who want to study but cannot afford to. I was accepted immediately which changed my life for the better.” phumlani now has a Diploma in Film and TV pro-duction (documentary) and Film and TV (drama).

She continued: “I recent-ly directed a documentary called “Girl Fight” which was produced here at little pond production part of Big Fish school of digital filmmaking and it was screened on etv on 4 February 2012. This was a great opportunity for me. Right now I am making more documentaries for little pond productions as a director and editor.

She concluded: “my big-gest hopes in the film industry are to make my own feature one day, tell more stories and take part in growing the indus-try in South africa.”

Kate hodges

TOP STUDENTS OF 2011

08 | The cal lsheet

Michel Dujardin Speelman Mabena

Phumlani Veto

Ross Campbell

Lukhanyo Nakho

NETWORKINGThese extremely well attended monthly functions reach up to 200 targeted industry players a month.

The Monthly Wrap can form an important part of your strategic marketing cam-

paign; with opportunities for networking, brand activations, screenings, product launches, showreel viewings and stra-tegic new announcements as well as other vehicles to best keep your product top of mind.

• 1 March 2012 – Southern Sun Cullinan• 29 March 2012 – Radisson Blu• 26 April 2012 – TBC• 31 May 2012 – Victoria Junc-tion hotel• 28 June 2012 – The Rockwell• 26 July 2012 – Lagoon Beach hotel• 30 August 2012 – Inn on Square• 27 September 2012 – Fire & Ice Hotel• 25 October 2012 – Mandela Rhodes Place• 29 November 2012 – Rood-ebloem Studios

Johannesburg and Dur-ban events to be confirmed. We are looking to have one around DIFF as well as 1 per quarter in Gauteng.

Please note that some ven-ues are TBC.

For sponsorship opportunities please contact:Makkie makkie@filmeventme-dia.co.za or Donovan dono-van@filmeventmedia.co.za

FILM EVENT MEDIA MONTHLY WRAPS 2012

The Cal lsheet | 09

10 | The Cal lsheet

10 | The Cal lsheet

DESIGN INDABA The Design Indaba Confer-ence takes place from 29 Feb-ruary - 4 March 2012 and runs concurrently with the Design Indaba expo, which is held at the Cape Town International Conference Centre (CTICC) from 2-4 March 2012.

The conference, an an-nual event since 1995, features the top creative minds in the world ad-

dressing creatives from the educational, corporate and creative sectors. There will be over 30 local and international speakers sharing their knowl-edge with delegates.

The topics covered include film, music, graphic design, fashion design, advertising, industrial design, publish-ing, broadcasting, archi-tecture, craft, visual art and new media.

According to the organis-ers: “The speakers are mas-ters of their industries and disciplines with knowledge that you will not find on the internet or in a book. every-thing at Design Indaba Con-ference has cross-disciplinary application possibilities.”

It is also worth noting that up to 20% of the audi-ence is from abroad, which speaks to the influence and quality of the content at the conference.

The Young Designers Si-mulcast in Cape Town is a live broadcast from the main ses-sion to a secondary audito-rium. This simulcast gives de-signers and students under the age of 25 access to the knowl-edge and discussions taking place at the conference at a discounted rate.

Once tickets for the main conference sell out, tickets for the Young Designers Simulcast

are made available for del-egates over the age of 25.

The simulcast will also be broadcast to Suncoast Confer-ence Centre in Durban and is open to delegates of all ages. The Johannesburg Simulcast will take place at the University of Johannesburg Arts Centre.

Design Indaba expo is the best place to view the latest in South African creativity. Visi-tors to the expo are exposed to the new and cutting edge design - all local.

The stands encompass a wide range of design, includ-ing: advertising, architecture, craft, décor, film, fashion, graphic design, interior design, jewellery, new media, publish-ing, product design, visual me-dia and more.

each stand has been cu-rated by a panel of indus-try experts, ensuring only the top design makes it to the expo floor. The expo is excit-

ing and engaging with all-day fashion shows, short films and presentations.

A sign of the quality of the design on the floor is the fact that many international buy-ers attend the expo in order to view the latest in South African creativity.

The Design Indaba Filmfest screens 19 February-4 March 2012 at Labia on Orange. Dur-ing the Filmfest, two design films will be screened every eve-ning, at 6.15pm and 8.30pm and tickets will cost R30. Films include documentaries Helvetica; Punk in Africa; Ob-jectified; the African premiere of Urbanized the final film in the Gary hustwit Design Trilo-gy; PressPausePlay ; Sing your Song; Vigilante Vigilante; Cam-eraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff; How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Fos-ter? ; El Bulli: Cooking in Prog-ress; Marian Bantjes, Graphic

Artist and more. In a first for the Filmfest,

the programme also includes a 3D film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, directed by Werner herzog.

Running from Friday 2 March to Sunday 4 March, the expo is open to anyone.

Opening hours:Friday 2 March 2012 from 10h00 - 20h00 (On-site tickets sales close at 19h00)Saturday 3 March 2012 from 10h00 - 20h00 (On-site tickets sales close at 19h00)Sunday 4 March 2012 from 10h00 - 18h00 (On-site tickets sales close at 17h00)

Tickets: Adults R60Pensioners and Students R40Scholars and Children R30Kids under 10 free.

DESIGN INDABA 2012

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EDITINGA report on the year that was, and the year ahead from the South African Guild of Editors (SAGE).

Aside from acting as a representative body that protects and fights for its members, SAGE

enables post-production profes-sionals to exchange knowledge and new ideas.

Last year post-production activities boomed thanks to the guild hosting workshops, discus-sions and competitions every month in Cape Town and Johan-nesburg.

Cape Town’s members wound down at the SAGE end of year social in December last year. If you’re a post-production fanatic in Johannesburg, don’t miss the new year celebration social on 29 February 2012 at The

Attic in Parkhurst. Producers and directors are also welcome to at-tend. Find out more on our Face-book page.

Other February events (which will have passed by the time of print) include a “show and tell” in Johannesburg, led by Catherine Meyburgh (SAGE), who is col-laborating with William Kentridge on a multi-projection installation piece Refusal of Time for Doku-menta 13 in Kassel, Germany. In Cape Town, the guild is arrang-ing an in-depth Adobe After Effects workshop to be led by Touchvision’s Wynand Lens.

More workshops, panel dis-cussions and festival events will be advertised via our mem-bership email list as well as our Facebook page. Search “South African Guild of Editors” on Face-book, and “like” the page to be kept in the loop.

The guild was thrilled to wel-come Cape Town-based Gra-

gan Tarlton, Jenny Hicks, Tessa Verfuss and TinaShe Makwande to 2012’s Executive Board. SAGE is looking for partnerships that will enable it to start a branch in Durban, and seeks to be more involved in film festivals this year. Please contact SAGE via Face-book or email if you can assist.

Last year SAGE was support-ed by Visual Impact, Simonsvlei Wine, Dax Data, AJA, Touchvi-sion, AFDA and Elsies River, and hopes to continue solidifying partnerships with post-produc-tion affiliates in 2012.

We hope all SAGE members and friends of the guild ben-efited from the events arranged and news generated by SAGE. last year, and we look forward to another year of positive post-pro-duction industry development across the country.SAGE SUCCESS STORIES FROM 2011:WORKSHOPS

1. Digital workflows (led by HD Hub and Visual Impact)2. Digital workflow options for getting a film on the big screen (Tracey Williams, Refinery)3. Best practice communica-tion between offline picture and sound departments (Andrew Spitz in Johannesburg and Barry Donnelly in Cape Town)4. Assistant editing in the feature film industry (Petr Geertsema and Jenny Hicks)5., Online editing and specific plug-ins (Riaan van Wyk, S.A.G.E.)6. Final Cut Pro X (Mike Brennan, Labspace)MASTERCLASSES / PANEL DISCUS-SIONS1. Hollywood editor Megan Gill showed extracts from and dis-cussed her work, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine2. Cape Winelands Film Festival documentary editing master-class by Dr Liani Maasdorp3. WildTalks discussion and

screening by ROSCAR-finalist editors4. Encounters International Doc-umentary Film Festival panel discussion by festival film edi-tors (two of whom won the Sun-dance Film Festival documen-tary editing award)5. Focus Features Africa First initiativeCOMPETITIONSSAGE Cape Town orchestrated a massive shoot-out between Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Me-dia Composer and Final Cut Pro, which included the opportunity to learn about post-production hardware such as AJA, various offline and online packages (in-cluding Smoke on Mac), and compare workflows for cameras Arri Alexa, Red Epic, Sony F3 and the Phantom. View the results on SAGETV2011.

Kerrin Kokot

SOUTH AFRICAN GUILD OF EDITORS (SAGE) REPORT

14 | The Cal lsheet

GENERAL NEWSGENERAL news from the South African film and commercials industry. You can load your own stories to our website at www.thecallsheet.co.za

Long Walk to FILM for Vrieslaar The success of US box office hits Chronicle and Safe House is a triumph for the local Film Industry Learner Mentorship (F.I.L.M.) programme. Both films used trainee crew from this leading Cape film produc-tion and servicing companies to ensure mentorship, training and skills development in the South African film industry.Safe House had a record 21 F.I.L.M. crew on set, including grips assistant Patrick Vrieslaar, an ex-prisoner who was also a trainee on Chronicle.

“Patrick’s story is complex,” said F.I.L.M’s project manager Seton Bailey. “Many years ago in a previous life, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. he grabbed a gun from gangsters and retaliated to save his own life. He was con-victed and ended up doing seven years of a 12-year sen-tence for attempted murder.”

Having worked on String Caesar with Alice Krige while still in Pollsmoor Prison, Patrick was released for exemplary be-haviour on parole and joined F.I.L.M. “he’s quiet, unassuming and totally dedicated. Patrick has just powered from strength to strength,” said Bailey.

Patrick who also worked on German TV movie Trea-sure Guards and the TV se-ries Labryinth, is currently on the set of British TV series Mad Dogs for Left Bank Pictures. he was named one of four F.I.L.M. mentees of the year in 2011, while his mentor, industry stal-wart John McKay, or “Uncle John” as Patrick calls him, was named Best Mentor.

“Where I find myself today is because of F.I.L.M. They gave me the chance and now Un-cle John has given me every-thing I need to go forward. It’s been fun working with actors you see every day on TV and I’m learning so much about lighting,” said Patrick.

John tells us about Vrieslaar’s role behind the camera. “Patrick is coming along nicely. he’s right next to the camera doing stuff during the shoot. he’s reliable, honest and keen to learn. I think he’s a success story in the making. Now he just needs to stop call-ing me ‘Uncle.’”

“Patrick’s role in blockbust-ers like Safe House and Chron-icle really is an awesome, uplifting human story about redemption and the triumph of the will over seemingly in-surmountable odds. his mum died last year just before Pat-rick received his F.I.L.M. award,

so she couldn’t be there to celebrate with him, but I’m sure she’s smiling down on him from on high. Patrick’s long walk represents the journey of so many of our trainees who have given their all to carve a career in a growing, diverse, and sustainable South African film industry,” said Seton.

Cape Town the star in two box office blockbustersCAPe Town was the common denominator in two box office smash hits released a week apart in America. TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Best Destina-tion in the World for 2011, Cape Town doubled for Seattle in the Josh Trank-helmed sci-fi ad-venture Chronicle but had a rare starring role as itself in Safe House, a CIA-themed action thriller starring Denzel Washing-ton and Ryan Reynolds.

Safe House, released on 10 February 2012, raked in $40.2m, a narrow second behind The Vow. This was the first time in box office history that two films had topped the $40m thresh-old on the same weekend in February. Chronicle, which opened on 3 February 2012, topped the notoriously slow Su-per Bowl weekend with a $22m opening and an average rat-ing of 86% on critic aggregator site RottenTomatoes.com.

Cape Town-based pro-duction company Film Afrika Worldwide shot Chronicle for US-based Davis entertainment, while Safe House filmed in South Africa with Moonlighting Films. On Chronicle, Josh singled out South African visual effects su-pervisor Simon hansen for help-ing create “flying like you’ve really never seen in a movie before. It is really the most real-istic flying I’ve ever seen.” Film Afrika’s impressive track record

of producing major interna-tional film projects in Southern Africa includes the Emmy-win-ning productions Gettysburgh and America: The Story of Us, the emmy-nominated No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and Endgame, and halle Berry’s upcoming Dark Tide.

Afrikaans comedy Semi-Soet A box-office successAfrikaans romantic comedy Semi-Soet, has earned more than R1.3 million at the box of-fice on its opening weekend, 17 - 19 February 2012. The film was released at 65 cinemas nation-wide and seen by more than 41 000 people which secured it a 2% higher site average than the hit musical Platteland earned on its opening weekend. Semi Soet did 126 percent better than Jakhalsdans, five percent better than Bakgat 2 and se-cured a solid 84 percent of the takings that Liefling die Movie did on its opening weekend. Semi Soet managed to hold onto the #2 position on the in-dustry Top 10 with the other lo-cal success story, Material se-curing the #3 spot.

The film tells the story of workaholic Jaci van Jaarsveld, who will go to any lengths to protect the advertising agen-cy for which she works from being bought and dismantled by a ruthless businessman known as “The Jackal”. A huge contract to market a presti-gious wine farm internation-ally will help save the agency, but winning this contract is no simple matter.

Jaci needs to convince the owner that she believes in fam-ily values and commitment. She persuades a drop-dead gorgeous man who she finds standing outside a modelling agency to be her fiancé for the

day. But when the client insists that she and her bogus fiancé spend the weekend at the es-tate to better understand the business and his requirements, things get complicated and her plan starts to unravel with hilarious consequences.

“Semi-Soet is light, uplift-ing entertainment,” said hel-en Kuun, CEO of Indigenous Film Distribution. “It’s uniquely South African, and brings the wine lands of the Cape and the city of Johannesburg to life. It also has some excellent Afrikaans word play that audi-ences just love. We are really happy with its performance. This indicates just how ready South Africans are for home-grown rom-coms.”

Semi-Soet was conceptual-ised by Anel Alexander, Joshua Rous, James Alexander and Sandra Vaughn, and is direct-ed by Joshua Rous (City Ses’la) and produced by James and Anel Alexander’s Scramble Productions. The film stars Anel Alexander (Discreet, 7de Laan, Binnelanders), Nico Panagio (Die Storie van Susanna van Biljon, Survivor), Diaan Lawren-son (7de Laan, Stander), Paul du Toit (Liefling, Binnelanders), Louw Venter (The Most Amaz-ing Show), and Sandra Vaughn (Getroud Met Rugby).

Anel Alexander says film is her passion, but that it’s also a business. “We wanted to make an Afrikaans romantic comedy in which the humour and the characters are intel-ligent, aspirational and sexy. The result is a slick, fun film with a great cast and excel-lent production values. We’ve released it just in time for Val-entine’s Day and have high hopes for its ongoing perfor-mance at the box office.”

Lulama Mokhobo appointed as SABC GCEOLULAMA Mokhobo replaced acting chief executive Robin Nicholson. The appointment is for a period of five years. Lulama was previously SABC group executive for public broadcasting services. After obtaining her BA degree from the University of Botswana and Swaziland, she completed her Master of Science qualifica-tion at the Utah State Univer-sity in the United States.

In an interview SABC2’s Morning Live breakfast show shortly after her appointment, she said:” The SABC needs to refocus on what South Afri-cans want to see and hear.”

In a statement the Inde-pendent Producers Organ-isation released the following statement: “We know that her experience as both a broad-caster and an independent producer will stand her in good stead and believe that she will be a champion of local con-tent with a keen understanding and concern for the wellbeing of the creative and production sector that provides the SABC with programming.

“We call on all our col-leagues both within and out of the SABC to offer Ms Mokhobo their support as she gets to grips with the many challeng-es that face the SABC and are sure if we all work together we can ensure the public broad-caster will stabilise and grow from strength to strength. We wish her luck and strength and offer her our support in this very important position.”

ONLINE NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

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Semi-Soet

Safe House

continued from page one

Danie explains that they are aware of the challenges fac-ing the film industry

as a result of digitisation, “We understand that post is busy dying, we understand that people are telling us eventu-ally the lab will have a natural death, but we’re managing the process. For the previous guys, it took too long for them

to start changing into do-ing their own production. We understand production. We don’t have any gearing in this company so we didn’t have to take huge bonds to buy this place. The stuff is paid for and we’re going to take this thing forward with Sean running our own stuff. Anyone that wants to produce or co-produce, can come and speak to us - we’re out-of-the box thinkers.”

The forward thinking na-

ture of the company carries through in their commitment to training. Sean said: “We’ve started doing cross-training at Collective Dream, putting young guys on the Flame and matching them to the skill sets.” Danie elaborated: “An example is the guys in the film lab, it’s my understanding that in three or four years their jobs might be obsolete, so we’ve talked to them, and asked ev-ery single one of them which machine they would like to be cross trained on. They need to choose different machines to cross-train on for the sake of their career.”

Danie has a deep passion for training, and is involved with the National Education and Training Academy (NETA). He is keen to incorporate this passion to Collective Dream, “The problem with training has always been placing people. I can place people here at the studios and train them myself. I don’t know how we’re go-ing to run it down here yet. I need to go speak to the Se-tas to find out what we have, what we need to get the unit standards, what we need for the facilitators or are we going to be the company that is the unit standard. Training is a high priority for us, but not in the immediate future.”

The trio are excited about their plans for the facility and

the future. Rudy explains that they hope to collaborate with production companies on projects, saying they’re look-ing to work with a variety of production companies on film projects. Danie, the self-styled “calculator” explained: “We were extremely surprised at the reactions when we went out there and said we want to take on equity shares in film so come and speak to us. People are so surprised that we offer equity investment for film and handle the post-pro-duction as a condition, and I think in the first week we had something like 11 scripts.” He explained that his financial background along with Sean and Rudy’s knowledge of con-tent and creativity will contrib-ute to their decisions about the projects they will get involved with.

Sean said they are thrilled with the success of Platteland (by the middle of February, Platteland had already earned R8.2 million, and is doing in-credibly well in DVD sales). Collective Dream will also be making international projects in future. Sean believes the stories generated in South Af-rica are of a high quality and need to be made in such a way that they are accessible to a wide audience. He said: “We have focused on the Af-rikaans market in the past, but

the stories are universal. I’m going to continue with my re-cord label (Mozi Records) up in Joburg. We’ll be flying up and down all the time. A story and a film are universal, Plat-teland worked because of the relationships with the artists, but any Afrikaans movie can fail if the narrative is not right. For us to focus on the English market - the international mar-ket - same rules apply. Con-tent is king and the basis of that is narrative, so I just want to make sure that’s right.”

The trio spoke about a grand opening of Collective Dream in the coming months, describing a facility that is building on the best of what was already established by the old Waterfront Studios, as well as moving into other areas of the industry. Ultimately, it is their hope that they can en-rich the Cape Town industry, shifting the focus away from service and towards original content creation. Their plans for the future are ambitious, but with their combination of business acumen, creative passion and the easy relation-ship between the three, this family run business looks set to move away from the ac-rimonious past of the former tenants and become a ma-jor player in the South African film landscape.

Kate Hodges

CONTENT IS KING FOR COLLECTIVE DREAM

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Sean directing Bok van Blerk and Steve Hofmeyr on the set of Platteland

AWARDS

The sixth official SAFTAS will take place on the ninth and 10th of March 2012.

The nominees for the sixth annual South Af-rican Film and Televi-sion Awards (SAFTAS)

were announced on Thurs-day 16 February 2012 at The Venue in Melrose Arch, North of Johannesburg.

The SAFTAS were established in order to honour talent and cre-ativity in the local film and tele-vision industry, across a range of categories, including: non-fiction categories and documentaries, wildlife programming, children’s and educational programming, news and actuality program-ming, magazine programming and more. Fiction categories include: Drama, Soap Opera, Comedy, Animation, Student Films and Short Films categories.

SAFTAS project manager Azania Muendane said: “As NFVF we are once again very

excited to organise the SAF-TAS, as well as witnessing the growth the awards continue to demonstrate every year. This year we received a record number of 238 entries, which is the highest since the SAFTAS commenced six years ago. To us this is an indication of the in-dustry’s continued support and confidence in the awards,”

The SAFTAS chairperson eddie Mbalo added that this year the awards are themed around heritage. “Guests can expect to experience a truly South African yet world class awards ceremony.” Mbalo further noted the importance of recognising and develop-ing young talent through the SAFTAS, highlighting that “this year the committee appointed Grooves Productions’ Lehlo-honolo Lehana to work along-side Clive Morris Productions during the SAFTAS.”

This year for the first time saw the judges made up of only the previous winners and nominees of the SAFTAS of pre-vious years, a move aimed at creating a stronger peer rec-ognition adjudication process moving forward. In addition they implemented skills spe-cific judging panels. The overall judging process is chaired joint-ly by seasoned industry figures Mamdoo and Motsepe who were responsible for providing oversight and ensuring adher-

ence to the set procedures in the judging process.

Leading the drama genre categories with 23 nomina-tions is Intersexions, the popu-lar SABC 1 drama series whose storyline was based on the hIV/AIDS infection chain in the so-ciety through the interconnect-edness of the people’s sexual networks. Another SABC 1 dra-ma series that features promi-nently in the drama genre cat-egories is Sokhulu & Partners with 10 nominations.

In the soap genre catego-ries, Scandal and Rhythm City received 7 nominations each while Isidingo and Generations received four and three nomi-nations respectively. As with ev-ery year, the public will get the opportunity to vote for their fa-vourite soap in the Best TV Soap category, this award will see all participating TV soapies going for the Golden horn, namely Generations, Isidingo, Rhythm City, Scandal!, Muvhango and The Wild. 7de Laan did not re-ceive a nomination into this category as the soapie was not entered for the SAFTAS.

“The South African Films and Television Awards are our industry’s premier accolade platform, awarding the best talent both on and off screen for all genres of film and televi-sion programming. The SAFTA’s is fundamentally a competi-tion, entry into which is com-

pulsory for consideration by the judges and into the judging process. The public vote is part of the SAFTA’s judging process, as the public are the judge and jury for the Best TV Soap award. Therefore, to emphasise the point, only those programmes that submit during the specified time are eligible to compete. In the case of the TV Soap 7de Laan, who admittedly did not enter for competition, there-fore cannot compete in the public vote. Contrary to some media reports, the production 7de Laan, was not excluded from the SAFTA’s,” said Eddie.

The Feature film category is led by Black Butterflies with nine nominations. Skoonheid, Retribution and Roepman fol-lowed with six nominations each. Retribution’s Jeremy Crutchley and Joe Mafela are both nominated for Best Actor, together with Fana Mokoena – State of Violence and Dean Lotz for Skoonheid. For the Best Actress in a feature category, there are no nominations. The performance judging panel made the following statement.

“The Performance Panel of judges regret to announce that there will be no award in the ‘Best Actress in a Feature Film’ category this year. This is be-cause the 10 films that made it through filtration were predomi-nantly male-driven stories. Only two actresses were listed as

Lead Actress, one of whom was not eligible for a SAFTA as she was not South African. These cir-cumstances render an award for Best Actress in a Feature Film meaningless and the judges unanimously decided not make such an award this year. This is a far from desirable situation, and the panel urge writers and pro-duction companies to bear in mind that as an industry needs to tell more stories that provide a platform for the luminous fe-male thespian talent our coun-try has to offer.”

Overall judging chairper-son Jackie Motsepe said she is very happy with the com-mitment and energy that has been shown by all parties in-volved with the SAFTAS thus far. “everyone involved is go-ing the extra mile in doing their part to ensure the awards are a success and that is very en-couraging. It is also great to witness growth in the quality of local film and television pro-ductions, especially to those of us who will remember the long way the industry has come,” said Motsepe.

The sixth SAFTAS will be held from 9 - 10 March 2012 at Gal-lagher estate in Midrand. The first event will award winners in the Non-fiction categories and the second event will award Fiction categories. The awards will be broadcast on SABC3 on Sunday 11 March 2012.

SOUTH AFRICAN FILM & TELEVISION AWARDS 2012

The Cal lsheet | 17

Eddie Mbalo

SOUND DESIGN The multi-talented Markus Worm-storm launched his new album not I, but a friend his in Cape Town earlier this month.

His creative album launch took place at an aban-doned mansion in Bishops Court for an intimate per-

formance to a very limited group of guests and friends. The venue was brilliantly matched to his live performance.

The new album entitled not I, but a friend is available for free from wormstorm.tv The album is

a series of dark classical orches-trations and cinematic electron-ic arrangements recorded by Markus between 2008 to 2012.

Markus started his music journey at the age of 19 when he got signed to the New York based Record label sound ink. From there he began to collab-orate with an array if interesting characters such as sibot, Waddy Jones and director Daniel Levi (of Prodigy and Massive Attack music video fame).

Markus and his friend sibot started performing their own unique style of Glitch Hop as The Real Estate Agents. During

that time the two of them start-ed a sound production compa-ny. Markus wrote the music for many brands and won several Loeries at this time.

A few years later Markus started two other projects - The Blackheart Gang, a fantasy art project which creates sculp-tures books and animations, and the dance floor killing Sweat.X with international sensation spoek Mathambo.

Besides winning awards lo-cally and globally for his cre-ative work, Markus has also spoken about musical writing and composing at events like

the F5 conference in New York, the Cutout festival in Mexico and the Play Ground festival in the Netherlands.

in addition to his personal cre-ative projects, Markus also has a company that connects agen-cies and directors with orginal mu-sic. Markus says, “Mostly above the line advertising though we are very interested in the gam-ing industry as well. i work with around twenty musicians. On av-erage i produce the soundtracks to around three commercials a month.”

When asked about the chal-lenges of changing gears from working on personal creative projects to the sound design and composition he does for commercials, Markus said he doesn’t have trouble. He said:

“The system i have in place al-lows me to focus on my art as well as commerce. i tend to get very involved in my work and i sometimes loose myself in it. My mantra at the moment is to try my best ...and to move on when i’m done, otherwise i’d burn out.”

We can expect more from Markus, but more of what? i asked him and got the expect-ed, unexpected reply.

“i have no idea.. i love creat-ing, the way i approach sound design is something that people have responded well to, so may-be some more of that, depends who approaches me really and it if i run out of sound design work any time soon, i suppose i’ll get a chance to finish my novel, The Boy Who Could Stop Time.

Staff Writer

MARKUS WORMSTORM ALBUM LAUNCH

18 | The Cal lsheet

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GENERAL NEWSGENERAL news from the South African film and commercials industry. You can load your own stories to our website at www.thecallsheet.co.za

National Film and Video Founda-tion (NFVF) announces new CEOZamantungwa (Zama) mkosi is the new CEO of the national Film and Video Foundation of South africa (nFVF). Zama an admitted high court attorney, has a long and illustrious career in the media and entertainment industry, and her mixture of commercial, legal and media astuteness will carry the nFVF into a new era.

Chairman of the nFVF Coun-cil, mmabatho Ramagoshi said that the nFVF chose Zama based on proof of her effective leader-ship, excellent project manage-ment, sound interpersonal skills, prescient vision and strategic planning. “we have followed Zama’s career closely and are pleased that such a well-round-ed person with incredible intel-lectual and commercial rigour is our new CEO,” said mmabatho.

“my legal experience cou-pled with my work as a producer in the film and television industry enables me to lead the nFVF into the future. I am keen to tackle the challenges facing the indus-try and harness the many oppor-tunities present in the South afri-can film and television industry,”

said Zama.Zama, worked as the senior

legal advisor to the media and motion pictures business unit at the Industrial Development Cor-poration (IDC). During her five year stint, she advised the IDC on the viability of its potential invest-ments in the media and enter-tainment industries.

She was seconded by the IDC to train with a law firm called Entertainment Law group in Los angeles, which specialises in the media and film industry in Hollywood and most of the united States. During this time she expanded her specialist knowledge working with various entertainment industry stake-holders, including studio execu-tives, independent production houses, agents (literary and art-ist) as well as equity investors. She was thus listed by the Hol-lywood Reporter as one of the “most influential young women in the media in africa.”

Zama also worked as the executive producer for Heart-lines – a television series that addressed social issues in South africa. She has had extensive training in Intellectual Prop-erty Law, working in geneva, Hague, Stockholm and Harare at respective patent offices.

Zama has served on various media boards: Film Resource Unit (an African film distribution organisation), aVEa (audio Visu-al training Institution), Heartlines

and on the nFVF Council as the deputy chairperson

DFA launches new websitetO kick off their fifth birthday year the Documentary Filmmak-ers’ association has launched their new website. the new site was initiated during 2011 under the DFa’s previous board’s ten-ure. after more or less a year of designing and developing in-between work the DFa has pulled it off! the site was de-signed and developed by Justin Slack. the DFa have stated that they are grateful to Slack for the work that he has done and the time he devoted to the project. the DFa was established to nur-ture and develop the interests of documentary filmmakers in South africa.

Durban film pioneer pays it for-warda multi-million rand fund geared at upcoming creative talent will be used to develop and harness the skills of a “Born-Free” genera-tion of black film-makers in the country.

this is the goal envisioned by award-winning director and producer Junaid ahmed, whose film production company Fine-line Productions was recently announced as recipients of the 2012 national Film and Video Foundation (nFVF) Slate Funding.

Fineline Productions will be al-located a total of R6 million over

a period of three years; R1 million each year for development of four feature projects and R1 mil-lion each year to produce one of the films out of the development slate.

Junaid, who specialises in film and television production, will steer a programme target-ed at sourcing and developing emerging black talent within the local film industry. “I be-lieve it is essential that young aspirant filmmakers are given every opportunity to develop their craft so that South afri-can cinema is further enriched by these new visions and new voices,” said Junaid.

Despite the success of his documentaries and films, which have featured in several interna-tional film festivals, the Durban-born film-maker still holds the city of Durban close to heart -it is his “desire” to film two of the four feature films in the city. Junaid’s feature film Stockholm, Zulu-land, a co-production with re-nowned Swedish producer Jan Blomgren, was also chosen as an official project during the in-augural Durban Filmmart (DFm) in 2010. The final selection of film projects for nFVF will be made at the end of march 2012 and groundwork for the funding will begin thereafter.

acting CEO of the Durban Film Office (DFO) Toni Monty believes Junaid’s venture en-compasses similar objectives to

the Durban Filmmart. “It will be exciting to observe how Junaid ahmed will use his experience and expertise to enrich the lives of young emerging film-makers and in doing so, give back to his community through such an ini-tiative,” said toni.

Junaid’s motivation for the project was based on his con-cern over the slow advance-ment of black film professionals; particularly screenplay writers, directors and producers in the film industry. An intensive-action plan was hatched by ahmed and his team at addressing the root of the problem. this in-volves selecting and grooming aspirant film-makers with “natu-ral DNA and flair for the art of visual story-telling,” said ahmed. another key objective is to over-come the shortage of local sto-ries by adapting novels written by black writers aimed at the big screen.

“We have identified a pool of writers who reflect a cross sec-tion of people from across South africa- and their literary works are not only compelling stories but will also translate brilliantly to the big screen,” said Junaid.

Relevant societal issues cou-pled with fresh visual language will be sourced from a group of film-graduates from around the county in a developmental project aimed mentoring and grooming raw talent.

20 | the Cal lsheet

ONLINE NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

The Cal lsheet | 21

DIRECTORY LISTINGS

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ARCADIA SOUNDTechnology DurbanT: +27 83 963 9220E: tristan@arcadiasound.comwww.arcadiasound.com

VISUAL IMPACTCameras/ TechnologyCape TownT: +27 21 468 6000www.visuals.tv

ERROL’S TRACKING SERVICESCamerasJohannesburgT: +27 82 455 9932E: francesi@mweb.co.zawww.trackingvehicles.co.za

CAMERA READY CARSTechnologyCape TownT: +27 21 556 4948 E: info@camerareadycarssa.comwww.camerareadycarssa.com

CAM-A-LOT RENTALSCameraJohannesburgT: +27 11 787 6234E: info@camalot.co.zawww.camalot.co.za

MNETBroadcasterJohannesburgT: +27 11 289 3000www.multichoice.co.za

THE SUNSHINE COMPANYEquipment RentalsCape TownT: +27 21 461 0595E: bruce@sunshinecompany.co.zawww.sunshinecompany.co.za

SCARAB INDUSTRIESVTO/DTICape TownT: +27 21 683 2556E: info@scarabindustries.co.zawww.scarabindustries.co.za

SITEWISEUnit GearCape TownT: +27 21 447 3151E: action@sitewise.co.zawww.sitewise.co.za

UPSTAIRS POST PRODUCTIONPost ProductionCape TownT: +27 21 461 8400E: upstairspost@gmail.comwww.upstairspost.co.za

CAMERA FACILITIESCameraJohannesburgGautengT: +27 11 886 9016E: facility@global.co.zawww.camerafacilities.co.za

SA CAMERACamerasCape TownT: +27 21 418 4885E: sales@sacamera.co.zawww.sacamera.co.za

CAM-A-LOT RENTALSCamerasJohannesburgT: +27 11 787 6234E: info@camalot.co.zawww.camalot.co.za

ORMS PRO PHOTO WAREHOUSECamerasCape TownT: +27 21 465 3573E: sales@orms.co.zawww.ormsdirect.co.za

DRAGON GRIPSTechnologyUSA and South AfricaT: +27 83 525 6581E: thedragon@dragongrips.comwww.dragongrips.com

VISUAL IMPACT GROUPEquipment RentalsSouth AfricaT: +27 86 077 4373E: marius@visuals.tvwww.visuals.tv

A=O+LAccounting ServicesCape TownT: 27 82 822 8239E: tina@aequalsoplusl.co.zawww.aeequalsoplusl.co.za

AONInsuranceGautengT: + 27 11 380 90 00E: info@aon.co.zawww.aon.co.za

AQUILA PRIVATE GAMELocationsWestern CapeT: +27 21 431 8400E: mandi@aquilasafari.co.zawww.aquilasafari.com

RATANGA JUNCTIONLocationsCape TownT: +27 21 550 8504E: maggie@rabie.co.zawww.ratanga.co.za

PANAVISION SACamera and LightingCape TownT: +27 21 555 1780E: tony.eddy@panavision.za.comwww.panavision.com

PROSOUND/T&A LIGHTINGLightingDurbanT: +27 11 470 6800E: dbn@prosound.co.zawww.prosound.co.za

REMOTE CAMERA SYSTEMSCameraCape TownT: +27 21 785 2786E: info@remotecamerawww.systems.co.za

SOUTHERN LIGHTINGLightingGautengT: +27 11 887 9351E: info@southernlighting.co.zawww.southernlighting.co.za

GEARHOUSE SACameraJohannesburgT: +27 11 216 3000E: jhb@gearhouse.co.zawww.gearhouse.co.za

KPG MEDIA TECH.TechnologyCape TownT: +27 21 424 7501E: sales@kpg.co.zawww.kpg.co.za

KATUNDA LOGISTICSCamera and LightingCape TownT: +27 21 670 1300E: katunda@katunda.co.zawww.katundalogistics.co.za

LAZER COMMUNICATIONSCamera and LightingCape TownT: +27 21 510 5450E: info@lazer.co.zawww.lazercommunications.co.za

MUSICIAN’S MEDIATechnologyWestern CapeT: +27 21 531 1549E: gear.sa@mweb.co.zamusiciansmedia.co.za

CITY VARSITYEducationCape TownT: +27 21 466 6800E: sean.hippolyte@cityvarsity.co.zawww.cityvarsity.co.za

AVISVehicle RentalSouth AfricaT: +27 11 923 3660E: info@avis.co.zawww.avis.co.za

FLASH PHOTOHIREEquipment RentalsCape TownT: + 27 21 418 0618www.flashphoto.co.za

CTICCLocationCape TownT: +27 21 410 5000E: info@cticc.co.zawww.cticc.co.za

DOREMI CINEMATechnical SalesFranceT: +33 49 295 4281E: julieng@doremitechno.orgwww.doremilabs.com

ROSCOSupplierUKT: +44 20 865 92300E: knellr@rosco-europe.comwww.rosco.com

SOUTHERN SUNLocationsCape TownT: +27 11 461 9744E: contactus@southernsun.comwww.southernsun.com

V&ALocationCape TownT: +27 21 408 7600E: info@waterfront.co.zawww.waterfront.co.za

UVSCar RentalsCape TownT: +27 21 686 2404E: margeaux@uvsrent.co.zawww.uvsrent.co.za

ROODEBLOEM/SUNSHINEStudios and Equipment RentalCape TownT: +27 21 447 6326E: info@roodebloemstudios.co.zawww.roodebloemstudios.co.za

TURBOLITELightingMilnertonCape TownT: +27 21 552 7799E: jim@turbolite.co.zawww.turbolite.co.za

THE CAMERA PLATFORMCamerasJohannesburgT: +27 11 705 2601E: bram@cameraplatform.co.zawww.cameraplatform.co.za

MOVIEVISIONLightingJohannesburgT: +27 11 887 9351E: johnharrison@movievision.co.zawww.movievision.co.za

PANALUXLightingCape TownT: +27 21 529 4200E: info@panalux.bizwww.panalux.biz

22 | The Cal lsheet

JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES33rd Durban International Film Festi-val Calls for EntriesTHE 33rd edition of Durban Interna-tional Film Festival will take place from 19 - 29 July 2012.

Supported by the National Lot-tery Distribution Trust Fund (principal funder), the National Film and Video Foundation, the KwaZulu-Natal De-partment of Economic Develop-ment and Tourism and other valued funders and partners, the festival will present over 200 screenings of fi lms from around the world, with a special focus on fi lms from South African and Africa. 2012 will see the return of Tal-ent Campus Durban and the Durban FilmMart.

The festival calls for entries from around the world. Feature fi lms, short fi lms and documentaries are all wel-come. The festival does have a com-petition component. The deadline for entries is 16 March 2012 for short

fi lms and documentaries; 6 April 2012 for feature fi lms. Early submissions are encouraged. All submissions must be done via the Eventival online system - please create an account to submit. To submit fi lms copy and paste this into your browser: http://vp.eventival.eu/cca/diff2012

For more information visit: www.cca.ukzn.ac.za or email

diff@ukzn.ac.za

SIGGRAPH Animation Festival Call For EntriesIN 2012, SIGGRAPH’s Computer Ani-mation Festival celebrates its 39th year as the world’s most innovative exploration of computer-generated animation and visual effects. This four-day, international event is a glimpse into the most talented technical and artistic minds of our industry. It show-cases everything from student fi lms to blockbuster visual effects! All entries

must be uploaded by 9 April 2012 (22:00 UTC/GMT). Only fi nished works will be considered for inclusion, and all submissions must be uploaded at fi nal resolution.

Submission Categories: Com-puter Animation Shorts; Music Videos; TV and Web Commercials; Visualisa-tions and Simulations; Student Pro-jects; Animated Feature Films; Visual Effects fro Short Films and TV Pro-grams; Visual Effects for Live-Action Feature Films; Real-Time Animation and Miscellaneous.

Please visit http://s2012.siggraph.org/submitters/computer-animation-festival for further details.

Applications open for Talent Campus DurbanTHE 5th Talent Campus Durban will aim to ignite the creativity of 40 se-lected fi lmmakers from Africa in a se-ries of masterclasses, workshops and

industry networking opportunities dur-ing the Durban International Film Fes-tival in July. Talent Campus Durban entices fi lmmakers to enhance skills, develop collaborations and inter-face with the dynamic future of the fi lm industry in Africa, and the world.

The fi ve-day programme also in-cludes the 2nd edition of Doc Station, where selected documentary pro-jects submitted by accepted talents will be fi nessed and packaged for presentation within the DOC Circle at the 3rd Durban FilmMart.

Application is open to fi lmmak-ers and critics who are resident in Af-rica. Applicants are encouraged to apply well before the deadline of 15 March in order to submit their work samples timeously.

Visit www.cca.ukzn.ac.za or www.berlinale-talentcampus.de for submission regulations.

UPCOMING FEATURESTroye Sivan with the cast of Spud at the Cape Town premiereFEBRUARY

Material17 February, cinemas

Semi-Soet17 February, cinemas

Discop Istanbul28 February - 1 March 2012,

Istanbul, Turkey

MARCHNew York International Children’s Film Festival

2-25 March, New York, USA

Sofi a International Film Festival 4-31 March, Sofi a, Bulgaria

International Random Film Festival 10-13 March, Anija, Estonia

Cape Winelands Film Festival14-24 March, Cape Town and

Stellenbosch, South Africa

Hong Kong International Film Festival

21 March-5 April, Mafi keng, South Africa

Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival

23-24 March, Kimberley, SA

Atlanta Film Festival 23 March-1 April, Georgia, USA

For more, visit www.thecallsheet.co.za/diarise

Compiled by Fin Manjoo

DIARISE

Etienne Fourie’s Die Windpomp is the offi cial AFDA nominated fi lm in the best foreign student short fi lm for the 2012 student OSCARS.

We’re distributing 4 000 copies a month free

via bulk distribution at fi lm industry commissions

and organisations; key industry meeting points

like equipment houses, post facilities and

broadcasters; on set; and at key industry events.

This means we’ll remain the most read fi lm industry

trade publication.

After seven years of carrying the cost of mailing

another 4 000 copies direct to everyone else,

we’re asking for subscriptions to help us cover our

rising distribution costs.

Subscribe now for just R22.80 pm to keep receiving

your copy, delivered to your door every month.

Please contact us for a subscription debit order

form: nadia@fi lmeventmedia.co.za or

021 674 0646.

Etienne Fourie’s Die Windpomp is the offi cial AFDA nominated fi lm in the best foreign student short fi lm for the 2012 student OSCARS.

The Cal lsheet | 23

Aluta Film Festival Call for EntriesTHE Aluta Film Festival is South Af-rica’s premier African and diaspora cinema event. Submissions must be from fi lmmakers who have pro-duced fi lms that embrace black experiences worldwide and/or experiences of marginalised com-munities from across the globe. The emphasis of submissions must be on world cinema - fi lms that explore his-tory, social issues and highlight mar-ginalised communities within the developing world. The festival ac-cepts features, documentaries and short fi lms in the genres/sub-genres of drama, action, thriller, comedy, animation and factual. Filmmakers must also guarantee that, should their fi lm/video be selected, that permission from the rights holder is secured for a minimum of four screenings at the festival.

The deadline for entries is Fri-

day 31 August 2012. The ninth edi-tion of the festival takes place from 24 - 27 October 2012 in Kimberley, South Africa. For additional infor-mation contact the festival direc-tor at motheoseleke@yahoo.com or at motheoseleke@gmail.com.

Panda Awards Call for Entries: THE deadline for entries into the pres-tigious Wildscreen Panda Awards for the world’s best wildlife and environ-mental fi lms is Friday, 27 April. Entry fees have been frozen.

Panda Award Categoris are: 3D Award; Award to Promote Filmmak-ers from Developing Countries; Ani-mal Behaviour Award; Campaign Award; Children’s Choice Award; Best Cinematography Award; Earth Sciences Award; Best Editing Award; The Nature Conservancy Environ-ment & Conservation Award; Inno-vation Award; Best Music Award;

New Media Award; Newcomer Award; People & Animals Award; Popular Broadcast Award; Present-er-led Award; Best Script Award; Best Series Award; Short Film Award; fi lms @ 59 Sound Award; and the Theatri-cal Award.

In June the Panda Award nomi-nees will be announced and the delegate tickets will go on sale, with early-bird tickets ending in August. The Wildscreen Festival takes place in Bristol, UK from 14 -19 October 2012.

For more information visit www.wildscreenfestival.org.

Lola Kenya Screen Call for EntriesLOLA Kenya Screen, a Nairobi-based charity specialising in issues related to children, youth, mass media, culture and development, is calling for fi lm submissions and skill-development participation for

its 7th annual event which that takes place in Nairobi, Kenya, from 6 - 11 August.

Lola Kenya Screen invites all kinds of moving images-animation, fi ction, documentary and experi-mental fi lms, television series, video games and even creatively pack-aged music videos tackling issues related to children, youth and family and that provide strong role models to children and youth while speak-ing positively to children of diverse backgrounds are accepted-from all over the world. All entries submitted must be suitable for children ages 13 and under, youth aged 14-25 years, or family (25+). The deadline for ap-plications is 15 April, 2012.

For more information email director@lolakenyascreen.orgor visit www.lolakenyascreen.org

MARCHThe Artist

16 March, cinemas

BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

23 March-1 April, London, England

Ann Arbor Film Festival 27 March-1 April, Ann Arbor, USA

MIPDoc Documentary Content Market

30-31 March, Cannes, France

ABSA KKNK National Arts Film Festival

31 March-7 April, Oudtshoorn, SA

Istanbul Film Festival 31 March-15 April, Istanbul, Turkey

APRILMIPTV Television Content Market

1-4 April, Cannes, France

Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival

5-17 April, Brussels, Belgium

For more, visit www.thecallsheet.co.za/diarise

Compiled by Fin Manjoo

DIARISE

Son of Babylon showing at the Cape Winelands Film FestivalLucky starring Sihle Dlamini Jayashree Basavaraj.

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MARCH ISSUE 2012Booking deadline: 29 February 2012

Material deadline: 02 March 2012Print deadline: 09 March 2012

Lucky the opening fi lm of the Cape Winelands Film Festival