Date: 13/11/2003
Source: Ministry of Communications
Title: Matsepe-Casaburri: Southern African International Film & Television Market
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI, AT THE OPENING OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN INTERNATIONAL FILM AND TELEVISION MARKET, SITHENGI, Cape Town, 13 November 2003
Master of Ceremonies
The Chairman of Sithengi, Mr Joel Phiri
The CEO of Sithengi, Mr Mike Auret
Members of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature
Distinguished Diplomats
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am pleased to have been invited here to open the Sithengi Film and Television Market. The fact that this is the eighth market is indicative not only of the hard work and success of your organisation, but also of the increased importance of the African continent in taking control of its cultural and intellectual production, and of the increased role of multimedia in our lives, both for entertainment and also for educational purposes - for giving us a strengthened sense of who we are as people of the world and as new Africans of the 21st Century.
At the dawn of our democracy in 1994, as South Africans we had the vision to create our own creative space and our own market space. Even in these early days, we knew that multimedia industries, broadcasting systems, cinema and new media are the fundamental means available to our society to image and to reflect to ourselves and to the rest of the world 'the South African miracle'. We recognised that in an open society, media is important to create, express and safeguard our deeply held democratic values as enshrined in our constitution. Media is the means, especially in a society in transition, by which democracy is strengthened and whereby new ideas and creative solutions enter the world.
Sithengi is one of the forums established to achieve some of these ends. It is for this reason that we salute the founders and the organisers for what has been done through Sithengi up until now to promote Africans products that are really African works of art. It is from these foundations, that Sithengi aims to become the market place for Africa as a whole. To this march with the times, this necessary adjustment to the changing landscape, we can only rejoice and say: Amandla.
But let us look back at where we come from. In the past, the majority of people in South Africa were denied freedom of expression. Media was used to propagate colonial and apartheid ideologies that purposely subjugated the mind, enslaved the body and sought to kill the spirit. Notwithstanding all these attempts, the human spirit of the people of South Africa triumphed.
We are ten years into the building of a new society. There has been an eruption of new energy to drive transformation and reconciliation in South Africa. The values, enshrined in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and different pieces of legislation, are now finding concrete expression in our socio-economic life. The Children Broadcasting Forum is an example of a new focus on broadcasting for children by and with them. It is part of our constitutional guarantees for children.
A new dawn arose ten years ago through the promulgation of the 1993 Independent Broadcasting Authority Act. The 1999 Broadcasting Act consolidated the advances made through the introduction of independent regulation of broadcasting in South Africa and began to address broadcasting of local content and local content quotas. In 2002 the Broadcasting Amendment Act provided for the establishment of regional television services to broadcast in all official languages.
All this happened in this context of liberalisation and South Africa's re-integration into the world economy. The result was the opening of our boundaries to the world and with this, we recognised the new challenges of development and growth that face us as South Africans and as Africans in general: Key among these challenges are the development of universal access to means of production, funding, infrastructure, human capital development, expansion of markets and competitiveness.
MARKET EXPANSION
Market expansion is where the Sithengi Film and Television Market makes a significant contribution to meeting these challenges, because Sithengi is indeed the premier market in Southern Africa - it is here where players trade, transact, exchange information and experience, bargain the prices of products and promote their wares.
In the hustle and bustle of this African market place, I hope the visiting commissioning editors; producers and buyers will find South African content appealing and our country an attractive destination for filmmaking, as I also hope that more co-production deals will be negotiated between South Africans, Africans and the rest of the world. For it is in this way that we strengthen international co-operation and cement our relations with the rest of the world. This market ought to be the place not only where deals are struck, but also where firm artistic friendships are forged, that should be of sustained mutual benefit for all involved, for many years, if not for decades to come.
Through the wide array of activities at Sithengi 2003 - from the Children's Festival to the Indonesian Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, the Binger Workshop, from the Documentary Co-production Forum to the Writers' Co-production Forum to the Animation Festival, among others - one can see that there is something for everyone. These various events that are part of the whole, offer numerous possibilities for partnerships to evolve and for co-operation agreements to get off the ground.
Indeed, the realisation of the African Renaissance and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) depends on the success of initiatives such as Sithengi in particular, the future of dynamic content industries on the African continent in general and overall sustained collaboration among African writers, producers, and musicians.
In order to create a new African landscape without frontiers, the African story must travel and must be allowed to travel. In this context, the African imagination will also fire the imagination of other people, other contexts and continents, so that the world is made smaller in terms of human contact and through arriving at better cultural understanding and yet is also made infinitely larger in terms of the reach and yield of the human imagination.
GOVERNMENT CONTRIBUTION AND INTERVENTION
In this regard, government and all stakeholders have a critical role to play in the creation of new stories and the re-telling of old ones through the development of content industries. The cost of not taking a comprehensive and integrated approach in addressing the challenges of development could result in loss of sovereignty and new forms of foreign domination worst than anything experienced in the colonial era.
Media in general impacts daily on the lives of citizens by informing and shaping perceptions, thought, opinions, values, identity and culture. The audiovisual arena is growing in leaps and bounds to be the single most influential sector of media that can be used to promote democracy and world opinion about us as South Africans and as Africans. Furthermore, content creation and distribution involve different forms of work at production and post-production phases, namely the creative aspect, broadcast, cinema, publishing, programming, packaging and distribution of content. These different forms offer more potential for job creation.
All forms of content, be it news, feature film, documentaries, or adverts, are turned into tradable commodities through the application of intellectual property laws so as to make it possible for content creators to appropriate value out of life experiences.
In the creation of true content, citizens become both the subject and the object of enterprise. Every citizen has the potential of participation, both as supplier of raw stories and as a demander and spender on content products. But this also entails access by content creators to networks, which are the key means of realisation of their stories, through provision of facilities for production, distribution and exhibition. Of course, crucial in this exercise is that we create products true to who we are and what we can offer the world provided that the above means are universally accessible, available and affordable. In turn, the consumer of culture also becomes the cultural critic who helps to shape our identity and our perceptions of the world.
VALUE OF CONTENT
The contribution of content to prosperity and wealth creation of a nation is determined by the extent to which the means of production and participation are made accessible to the citizens. Unlike other industries where the raw materials are governed by the laws of scarcity, finite raw materials and limited resources, the stories of citizens are in abundance because there are as many stories as there are individuals and many different ways of telling and re-telling these stories to different generations and different times. The dynamic nature of experience fuels creation and re-creation.
At the same time, we are faced with the challenge that there are limited fiscal resources in order to beneficiate stories from raw materials. However, every rand spent on content creates income in communications infrastructure by way of increased networks, traffic volume and bandwidth, transportation industries as well as in service and hospitality industries.
Some of the positive benefits that can be derived from investment in content creation are a knowledgeable and informed society; the demystification of knowledge and the mass empowerment of citizens through digital broadcasting systems to overcome the restriction of access which in the past has meant that content production exists only for the benefit the elite and advantaged few.
We can add to these benefits, the rediscovery of culture, identity and image and the preservation of heritage for future generations. These are also some of the elements necessary for the attainment of an African Renaissance and for the inculcation of confidence and pride in Africa's people.
These attempts at African renewal are particularly difficult in a country and on a continent where the majority of people have been denied access to the means of content production. Sithengi should continue to do better what it is already doing and encourage the participation of those who have been marginalized so that we do create the conditions for all our people to have greater access to content.
NEW DIGITAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT
We also have to face the reality of a new digital media environment resulting from the convergence of technologies. New platforms and broadband services generally result in more possibilities for development. With the proliferation of new media channels, content needs to be developed to reach out more to citizens.
We must ensure that through our efforts these possibilities are made available to our people, so that we bridge rather than widen the digital and knowledge divide.
Furthermore, digitisation and the benefits of these new technologies should be brought to our people so that they can access the content conveniently from home, work, and school or community facilities such as multi-purpose community centres.
The beauty of convergence is that it allows individuals to choose among many media to access critical information for their needs at any time, any place and on a device of their choice. In this way, it can lead to a further democratisation of our communities and our society as a whole.
REGIONAL TELEVISION SERVICES
The introduction of regional television calls for a paradigm shift to an innovative, and sustainable developmental model of broadcasting that reflects the imagery of all citizenry and democracy. Regional television would not only play a (re)distributive function in that it would increase channels, especially for the previously marginalized communities, but it would also be a catalyst for bringing the means of broadcasting closer to and be more accessible to these communities. The introduction of regional television will also contribute towards exceeding local content quotas and address gaps in language usage. Increased language diversity in terms of broadcast content will also lead to greater participation by our people.
The strategic thrust for transformation, development and growth in the content industries must hinge on three pillars of developing green fields for digital content, promoting local content development and international co-production and attracting and servicing foreign productions.
SOUTH AFRICA - A GLOBAL PLAYER
South Africa's re-entry into the world community has presented us with new opportunities as well as challenges. We have committed ourselves in working towards an African Renaissance through NEPAD, the African Union and all-African structures.
At the same time, our foreign policy thrust is also aimed at strengthening South-South relations. Together with Brazil and India, South Africa is part of a partnership in which all three countries can benefit through the exchange of knowledge and through joint projects. Since both Brazil and India are also content-producing countries, South Africa has a great deal to learn from their experiences as well as sharing its own experiences. Sithengi needs to strengthen these relations and become part of resulting projects.
South Africa has prioritised cultural industries in its growth macro-economic plans and there are various ways in which the content industry can be developed and grown.
The first is to develop robust indigenous local content by local broadcasters and content production companies to redress regional, local, cultural and language imbalances between urban and rural interests. The generation of local content would result in accumulation of South African inventory, direct capital formation, extensive skill development and vast economic and cultural revival and community development.
Co-production is another route to follow. The benefits of the co-production route is that the incentive amount translates into investment in the production and participating South African companies will realise a return proportional to investment and avoid the plundering of local resources.
Another route involves the exploitation of South African locations and other competencies for foreign production and promote South Africa as a filmmaking destination. It also creates multipliers in the service and hospitality industries.
The finalisation of our convergence legislation should contribute to digital content. As the convergence network industries mature, digital content industries will engulf every other form of media. It will underpin the evolution of South Africa into informational and knowledge society. Thus government is giving digital content industries strategic priority so that South Africa will be well placed to share its expertise and its digital content with the rest of the continent and the rest of the world.
CONCLUSION
As the South African government, we are ready, willing and able, to take on the challenges that new technology presents in the broadcast industry and in multi-media. We have been able to claim our victories, given the far-reaching changes that we have made in the last ten years to create the conditions for universal service and for local content to flower. We believe that multimedia will continue to grow and that cultural production will prosper in the next ten years and that Sithengi too will be able to claim its victories with pride in opening up a creative space and a market place for African content and African culture.
The great African writer, Ben Okri, in his book, A Way of Being Free, tells us that in Africa, everything is a story or a repository of knowledge. He says that:
"The greatest stories are those that resonate our beginnings and intuit our endings, our mysterious origins and our numerous destinies, and dissolve them both into one".
I think that it is this sense of both what is mysterious and also what is real, what tells us about our origins and what frees us to future possibilities, growth and development, that Africa can convey to the world.
May Sithengi grow from strength to strength for the sake of our artists, our writers, our actors, our producers, for the flourishing of cultural production in South Africa, Africa and the world.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Communications
13 November 2003
Source: Ministry of Communications
Title: Matsepe-Casaburri: Southern African International Film & Television Market
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI, AT THE OPENING OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN INTERNATIONAL FILM AND TELEVISION MARKET, SITHENGI, Cape Town, 13 November 2003
Master of Ceremonies
The Chairman of Sithengi, Mr Joel Phiri
The CEO of Sithengi, Mr Mike Auret
Members of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature
Distinguished Diplomats
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am pleased to have been invited here to open the Sithengi Film and Television Market. The fact that this is the eighth market is indicative not only of the hard work and success of your organisation, but also of the increased importance of the African continent in taking control of its cultural and intellectual production, and of the increased role of multimedia in our lives, both for entertainment and also for educational purposes - for giving us a strengthened sense of who we are as people of the world and as new Africans of the 21st Century.
At the dawn of our democracy in 1994, as South Africans we had the vision to create our own creative space and our own market space. Even in these early days, we knew that multimedia industries, broadcasting systems, cinema and new media are the fundamental means available to our society to image and to reflect to ourselves and to the rest of the world 'the South African miracle'. We recognised that in an open society, media is important to create, express and safeguard our deeply held democratic values as enshrined in our constitution. Media is the means, especially in a society in transition, by which democracy is strengthened and whereby new ideas and creative solutions enter the world.
Sithengi is one of the forums established to achieve some of these ends. It is for this reason that we salute the founders and the organisers for what has been done through Sithengi up until now to promote Africans products that are really African works of art. It is from these foundations, that Sithengi aims to become the market place for Africa as a whole. To this march with the times, this necessary adjustment to the changing landscape, we can only rejoice and say: Amandla.
But let us look back at where we come from. In the past, the majority of people in South Africa were denied freedom of expression. Media was used to propagate colonial and apartheid ideologies that purposely subjugated the mind, enslaved the body and sought to kill the spirit. Notwithstanding all these attempts, the human spirit of the people of South Africa triumphed.
We are ten years into the building of a new society. There has been an eruption of new energy to drive transformation and reconciliation in South Africa. The values, enshrined in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and different pieces of legislation, are now finding concrete expression in our socio-economic life. The Children Broadcasting Forum is an example of a new focus on broadcasting for children by and with them. It is part of our constitutional guarantees for children.
A new dawn arose ten years ago through the promulgation of the 1993 Independent Broadcasting Authority Act. The 1999 Broadcasting Act consolidated the advances made through the introduction of independent regulation of broadcasting in South Africa and began to address broadcasting of local content and local content quotas. In 2002 the Broadcasting Amendment Act provided for the establishment of regional television services to broadcast in all official languages.
All this happened in this context of liberalisation and South Africa's re-integration into the world economy. The result was the opening of our boundaries to the world and with this, we recognised the new challenges of development and growth that face us as South Africans and as Africans in general: Key among these challenges are the development of universal access to means of production, funding, infrastructure, human capital development, expansion of markets and competitiveness.
MARKET EXPANSION
Market expansion is where the Sithengi Film and Television Market makes a significant contribution to meeting these challenges, because Sithengi is indeed the premier market in Southern Africa - it is here where players trade, transact, exchange information and experience, bargain the prices of products and promote their wares.
In the hustle and bustle of this African market place, I hope the visiting commissioning editors; producers and buyers will find South African content appealing and our country an attractive destination for filmmaking, as I also hope that more co-production deals will be negotiated between South Africans, Africans and the rest of the world. For it is in this way that we strengthen international co-operation and cement our relations with the rest of the world. This market ought to be the place not only where deals are struck, but also where firm artistic friendships are forged, that should be of sustained mutual benefit for all involved, for many years, if not for decades to come.
Through the wide array of activities at Sithengi 2003 - from the Children's Festival to the Indonesian Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, the Binger Workshop, from the Documentary Co-production Forum to the Writers' Co-production Forum to the Animation Festival, among others - one can see that there is something for everyone. These various events that are part of the whole, offer numerous possibilities for partnerships to evolve and for co-operation agreements to get off the ground.
Indeed, the realisation of the African Renaissance and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) depends on the success of initiatives such as Sithengi in particular, the future of dynamic content industries on the African continent in general and overall sustained collaboration among African writers, producers, and musicians.
In order to create a new African landscape without frontiers, the African story must travel and must be allowed to travel. In this context, the African imagination will also fire the imagination of other people, other contexts and continents, so that the world is made smaller in terms of human contact and through arriving at better cultural understanding and yet is also made infinitely larger in terms of the reach and yield of the human imagination.
GOVERNMENT CONTRIBUTION AND INTERVENTION
In this regard, government and all stakeholders have a critical role to play in the creation of new stories and the re-telling of old ones through the development of content industries. The cost of not taking a comprehensive and integrated approach in addressing the challenges of development could result in loss of sovereignty and new forms of foreign domination worst than anything experienced in the colonial era.
Media in general impacts daily on the lives of citizens by informing and shaping perceptions, thought, opinions, values, identity and culture. The audiovisual arena is growing in leaps and bounds to be the single most influential sector of media that can be used to promote democracy and world opinion about us as South Africans and as Africans. Furthermore, content creation and distribution involve different forms of work at production and post-production phases, namely the creative aspect, broadcast, cinema, publishing, programming, packaging and distribution of content. These different forms offer more potential for job creation.
All forms of content, be it news, feature film, documentaries, or adverts, are turned into tradable commodities through the application of intellectual property laws so as to make it possible for content creators to appropriate value out of life experiences.
In the creation of true content, citizens become both the subject and the object of enterprise. Every citizen has the potential of participation, both as supplier of raw stories and as a demander and spender on content products. But this also entails access by content creators to networks, which are the key means of realisation of their stories, through provision of facilities for production, distribution and exhibition. Of course, crucial in this exercise is that we create products true to who we are and what we can offer the world provided that the above means are universally accessible, available and affordable. In turn, the consumer of culture also becomes the cultural critic who helps to shape our identity and our perceptions of the world.
VALUE OF CONTENT
The contribution of content to prosperity and wealth creation of a nation is determined by the extent to which the means of production and participation are made accessible to the citizens. Unlike other industries where the raw materials are governed by the laws of scarcity, finite raw materials and limited resources, the stories of citizens are in abundance because there are as many stories as there are individuals and many different ways of telling and re-telling these stories to different generations and different times. The dynamic nature of experience fuels creation and re-creation.
At the same time, we are faced with the challenge that there are limited fiscal resources in order to beneficiate stories from raw materials. However, every rand spent on content creates income in communications infrastructure by way of increased networks, traffic volume and bandwidth, transportation industries as well as in service and hospitality industries.
Some of the positive benefits that can be derived from investment in content creation are a knowledgeable and informed society; the demystification of knowledge and the mass empowerment of citizens through digital broadcasting systems to overcome the restriction of access which in the past has meant that content production exists only for the benefit the elite and advantaged few.
We can add to these benefits, the rediscovery of culture, identity and image and the preservation of heritage for future generations. These are also some of the elements necessary for the attainment of an African Renaissance and for the inculcation of confidence and pride in Africa's people.
These attempts at African renewal are particularly difficult in a country and on a continent where the majority of people have been denied access to the means of content production. Sithengi should continue to do better what it is already doing and encourage the participation of those who have been marginalized so that we do create the conditions for all our people to have greater access to content.
NEW DIGITAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT
We also have to face the reality of a new digital media environment resulting from the convergence of technologies. New platforms and broadband services generally result in more possibilities for development. With the proliferation of new media channels, content needs to be developed to reach out more to citizens.
We must ensure that through our efforts these possibilities are made available to our people, so that we bridge rather than widen the digital and knowledge divide.
Furthermore, digitisation and the benefits of these new technologies should be brought to our people so that they can access the content conveniently from home, work, and school or community facilities such as multi-purpose community centres.
The beauty of convergence is that it allows individuals to choose among many media to access critical information for their needs at any time, any place and on a device of their choice. In this way, it can lead to a further democratisation of our communities and our society as a whole.
REGIONAL TELEVISION SERVICES
The introduction of regional television calls for a paradigm shift to an innovative, and sustainable developmental model of broadcasting that reflects the imagery of all citizenry and democracy. Regional television would not only play a (re)distributive function in that it would increase channels, especially for the previously marginalized communities, but it would also be a catalyst for bringing the means of broadcasting closer to and be more accessible to these communities. The introduction of regional television will also contribute towards exceeding local content quotas and address gaps in language usage. Increased language diversity in terms of broadcast content will also lead to greater participation by our people.
The strategic thrust for transformation, development and growth in the content industries must hinge on three pillars of developing green fields for digital content, promoting local content development and international co-production and attracting and servicing foreign productions.
SOUTH AFRICA - A GLOBAL PLAYER
South Africa's re-entry into the world community has presented us with new opportunities as well as challenges. We have committed ourselves in working towards an African Renaissance through NEPAD, the African Union and all-African structures.
At the same time, our foreign policy thrust is also aimed at strengthening South-South relations. Together with Brazil and India, South Africa is part of a partnership in which all three countries can benefit through the exchange of knowledge and through joint projects. Since both Brazil and India are also content-producing countries, South Africa has a great deal to learn from their experiences as well as sharing its own experiences. Sithengi needs to strengthen these relations and become part of resulting projects.
South Africa has prioritised cultural industries in its growth macro-economic plans and there are various ways in which the content industry can be developed and grown.
The first is to develop robust indigenous local content by local broadcasters and content production companies to redress regional, local, cultural and language imbalances between urban and rural interests. The generation of local content would result in accumulation of South African inventory, direct capital formation, extensive skill development and vast economic and cultural revival and community development.
Co-production is another route to follow. The benefits of the co-production route is that the incentive amount translates into investment in the production and participating South African companies will realise a return proportional to investment and avoid the plundering of local resources.
Another route involves the exploitation of South African locations and other competencies for foreign production and promote South Africa as a filmmaking destination. It also creates multipliers in the service and hospitality industries.
The finalisation of our convergence legislation should contribute to digital content. As the convergence network industries mature, digital content industries will engulf every other form of media. It will underpin the evolution of South Africa into informational and knowledge society. Thus government is giving digital content industries strategic priority so that South Africa will be well placed to share its expertise and its digital content with the rest of the continent and the rest of the world.
CONCLUSION
As the South African government, we are ready, willing and able, to take on the challenges that new technology presents in the broadcast industry and in multi-media. We have been able to claim our victories, given the far-reaching changes that we have made in the last ten years to create the conditions for universal service and for local content to flower. We believe that multimedia will continue to grow and that cultural production will prosper in the next ten years and that Sithengi too will be able to claim its victories with pride in opening up a creative space and a market place for African content and African culture.
The great African writer, Ben Okri, in his book, A Way of Being Free, tells us that in Africa, everything is a story or a repository of knowledge. He says that:
"The greatest stories are those that resonate our beginnings and intuit our endings, our mysterious origins and our numerous destinies, and dissolve them both into one".
I think that it is this sense of both what is mysterious and also what is real, what tells us about our origins and what frees us to future possibilities, growth and development, that Africa can convey to the world.
May Sithengi grow from strength to strength for the sake of our artists, our writers, our actors, our producers, for the flourishing of cultural production in South Africa, Africa and the world.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Communications
13 November 2003
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