The 13th Durban FilmMart comes to an end in South Africa

Within the 13^th Durban FimMart the panel “SA in Focus: State of the South African Audio Visual Industry Part II” was held online. The session was attended by representatives from the Film and Media Promotion unit, the Eastern Cape Development Council and the National Film and Video Foundation.

The South African film and television industry continues to adapt to its new reality. On 26 July, the panel looked at the state of the South African film industry and initiatives by film commissions and institutions key to the South African industry.

Among the speakers were Monica Rorvik, WESGRO, Onke Dumeko, National Film and Video Foundation, Victor Senna, KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission and Phakamisa George, Eastern Cape Development Council.

For over seven years, Monica Rorvik has led the Film and Media Promotion unit at Wesgro, which is Cape Town and Western Cape region’s Tourism Trade and Investment Promotion Agency. She previously worked as Durban International Film Festival assistant manager and headed its industry programmes. She also does film programme curation, serves on international juries, selection panels and market expert programmes. She is a certified African Film Commissioner.

She believes that it’s important to support such film festivals as the Durban FilmMart. Monica Rorvik said: “We need more activity across the country, so we have to keep that turning over, we have to hunt in a pack and we have to support each other, participate in festivals and markets like Cape Town animation festival. We need to have an industry that is able to move forward and we also need to build that enabling environment.”

Onke Dumeko represents National Film and Video Foundation, is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society has cemented her valuable contribution made within diverse industries.She is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. Also she has been serving as the Partnerships & Distribution Manager at the National Film & Video Foundation since January 2021.

Onke Dumeko compared the state of the film industry before the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods. “Our economic impact assessment study just looks at the economic impact of the industry.If you look at the value of the industry pre-Covid, it was valued at about 7.1 billion and then in contracted by about 56% and you know with the impact of Covid it’s valued at about 2.9 billion,” she said. 

She summarized and said that the pandemic has seriously affected household incomes, tax revenues and job creation. 

In total, film professionals, filmmakers from across the continent, producers, technical experts earned wide international recognition for their experience and expertise participated in 60 panel discussions.