Aggrieved film-makers plan to protest at NFVF offices over rejected funding applications

A group of aggrieved film-makers whose projects were declined funding by the country’s leading film funding organisation, the National Film and Video Foundation, have vowed to stage a picket outside the Parktown offices of the film funding agency.

One of them is Zama Qambi of Sollywood South Africa, a film company that runs the Soweto International Film Festival, film school and other initiatives.

“This is a painful story for us as we have been rejected 43 times without a valid reason. We still continue to run our projects in spite of lack of support.

“Our events impact most of the townships and have legacy projects attached to them. I find it difficult that we can’t be funded when there is so much corruption in government-led institutions,” Qambi told “The Star”.

Qambi said the NFVF does not have the interests of the industry at heart, adding that she and many others will continue to fight for what is theirs.

“We will not rest until we expose this corruption and get to the bottom of this cancer ... the NFVF does not care about us but about the kickbacks. We apply for appeal, but they still never give you an answer,” he said.

Mpho Ntlateng, founder of OL Afrika Media Foundation, is another affected service provider who applied for funding in order to give young people practical skills in the industry.

Ntlateng told “The Star” that she and a group of other aggrieved applicants are not satisfied by the manner in which they were rejected by the funding institution. She said all of them received “a copy and paste” rejection letter that does little to highlight which aspects of their unique projects were rejected.

“All of us from those I know about received a copy and paste rejection letter. We have applied for different streams and some of the applicants are from Limpopo, yet they give us a blanket rejection.

“This application was part of the Presidential Stimulus Package. When we ask them what was happening, we were told that this is an industry standard.

“We indicated to them that it was the responsibility of the NFVF to monitor the outcomes because ultimately when we come to fight we fight the NFVF and not the expert panel that oversees the process.”

She said the plan is to shutdown the NFVF until their complaints are heard.

“We will shut down the NFVF until something gets done. We are speaking also to the office of the minister and still nothing gets done. When we try to speak to them they tell us that they are planning the SAFTAS,” she said.

She said she had applied for a film and television learnership programme to train 50 young people and equip them with practical film-making skills as part of her application.

“It has been two months since I have sent my appeal to the NFVF and they fail to respond to us.

“I have even contacted the CEO as well as the minister of arts and culture on this matter. Last week, I called the minister’s personal assistant and received a call from the NFVF. We now have no choice but to picket at the NFVF offices next week to voice our complaints,“ she said.

Another film-maker who spoke on condition of anonymity said all they want is for the NFVF to thoroughly go through their applications and not reject them without making a thorough assessment of their requests.

“We want them to take us seriously and not just reject us through a copy and paste rejection letter. They must tell us directly what is lacking in our applications,” she said.

Attempts by “The Star” to get comment from the NFVF were unsuccessful. Skhumbuzo Mvelase of the NFVF said he will forward our enquiries to the CEO, who had not responded by the time of going to print.