Parliamentary film festival

Since its inception, the Festival has maintained its objective to highlight the cross-cultural and diverse nature of the content that is being explored by the South African filmmakers. The Festival has continued to celebrate and showcase the country's high-quality film productions, and in so doing, is increasing interest and commitment towards the growth of the film sector.

“In line with the objectives to build bridges of understanding among South Africans so as to shape the current social and political discourses, it pleases me that some of the movies being screened have reached audiences in rural areas as well as in townships across our nation. Through NFVF funded outreach programmes in the form of national and provincial film festivals hosted over the past year, we move closer to our long-term objective to transform the traditional film-going audience to reflect the interest and preferences of all South Africans and language groups,” said NFVF CEO Eddie Mbalo.

Earlier this year South Africa reached a significant milestone when Minister of Trade and Industry, Mandisi Mpahlwa, announced the Film and Television Production and Co-Production Incentive. The incentive is open to South African productions and international productions, which meet the official requirements of the co-production treaty, whose total production budgets are R2.5 million or more. This industry achievement has been welcomed by the corporate sector, as well as the film industry as a positive way of supporting the growth of the sector. The incentive also demonstrates government's recognition of the film industry as a sector with high potential for growth and development.

“In our rapidly changing political and cultural environment our artistic community faces the often-harrowing task of capturing and reflecting the dynamics of our social reality. The purpose of this festival has been two-fold, namely to showcase and celebrate the fruits of our local industry, as well as, to create a platform for dialogue and engagement between the industry and the parliamentary community. We trust that the selection of feature films and documentaries on offer will afford everyone an opportunity to pause, reflect, and celebrate the richness of our African heritage,” said Zubeida Shaik, PMP programme manager.
Opening the festival is Skin, a film that depicts the life story of Sandra Laing. Skin has been showcased internationally and was well received with positive reviews. Other films that have been scheduled for the Festival include: More Than Just A Game, 50 Year's Of Love, Nothing But the Truth, Triomf, Confessions of A Gambler, Zimbabwe, Angels on our Shoulders, Baraka - Blessing, Burning Man, The World Unseen, and Asikhulume - Let's Talk.

The Festival will also host outreach programmes for children. In an effort to inculcate a film culture at a young age, children are invited to screenings and will have an opportunity to interact with filmmakers through discussion sessions with them. The films for this event include: Angels on our Shoulders, Uit My Kop Uit, Spiderman and Romeo, and I Am An African, among others.