Mother City to give birth to innovative film projects
New Cape Town festival seeks to help extend the city’s industry from providing services to producing content, writes Struan Douglas
For nine years, Leon van der Merwe had successfully ran the Stellenbosch-based Cape Town & Winelands Festival. Now he has teamed up with Jehad Kasu and Rafiq Samsodien to relaunch it as the Cape Town International Film Market & Festival. "We want to position the festival as a global brand, a platform that can help transition the Cape Town film industry from a services industry to a content-producing industry," says Kasu, the festival’s marketing director. The film market is an important addition to the festival and will provide opportunities for film production companies to interact with support industries and establish contacts for content procurement and new projects. Cape Town has not had a film market since Sithengi, which ran from 2001 to 2006. Film is an important contributor to the region’s economy. The Cape film and media gross geographic product is R2.63bn and generates 9,490 jobs. This amounts to 20% of SA’s film industry revenue, which the National Film and Video Foundati...
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