The nominees for the 6th annual South African Film & Television Awards (SAFTA) were announced on Thursday, February 16 at a glittering event held at The Venue in Melrose Arch, North of Johannesburg.
The SAFTAS are the industry awards under the custodianship of the National Film and Video Foundation. The award’s main objectives is to honour, celebrate and promote the creativity, quality and excellence of South African film and television talent, and encourage entrepreneurship and the development of new talent in the industry.
“As NFVF we are once again very excited to organise the SAFTAS, as well as witnessing the growth the awards continue to demonstrate every year. This year we received a record number of 238 entries, which is the highest since the SAFTAS commenced six years ago. To us this is an indication of the industry’s continued support and confidence in the awards,” said SAFTAS project manager Azania Muendane.
The SAFTAS Chairperson Eddie Mbalo added that this year the awards are themed around Heritage. “Guests can expect to experience a truly South African yet world class awards ceremony.” Mbalo further noted the importance of recognising and developing young talent through the SAFTAS, highlighting that “this year the committee appointed Grooves Productions’ Lehlohonolo Lehana to work alongside Clive Morris Productions during the SAFTAS.
This year for the first time saw the judges made up of only the previous winners and nominees of the SAFTAS of previous years, a move aimed at creating a stronger peer recognition adjudication process moving forward. In addition, implementing skills specific judging panels.
Leading the drama genre categories with 23 nominations is Intersexions, the popular SABC 1 drama series whose storyline was based on the HIV/AIDS infection chain in the society through the interconnectedness of the people’s sexual networks. Another SABC 1 drama series that features prominently in the drama genre categories is Sokhulu & Partners with 10 nominations.
In the soap genre categories, Scandal and Rhythm City received 7 nominations each, while Isidingo and Generations received 4 and 3 nominations respectively.
As with every year, the public will get the opportunity to vote for their favourite soap in the Best TV Soap category, this award will see all participating TV soapies going for the Golden Horn, namely Generations, Isidingo, Rhythm City, Scandal!, Muvhango and The Wild.
7 de Laan did not receive a nomination into this category as the soapie was not entered for the SAFTAS.
“The SAFTA’s is fundamentally a competition, entry into which is compulsory for consideration by the judges and into the judging process. The public vote is part of the SAFTA’s judging process, as the public are the judge and jury for the Best TV Soap award. Therefore, and to emphasise the point, only those programmes that submit during the specified time are eligible to compete. In the case of the TV Soap 7de Laan, who admittedly did not enter for competition therefore, cannot compete in the public vote. Contrary to some media reports, the production 7de Laan, was not excluded from the SAFTA’s.” said Eddie Mbalo, SAFTAS Committee Chairperson.
The Feature film category is led by Black Butterflies with nine nominations. Skoonheid, Retribution and Roepman followed film with 6 nominations each.
The 6th SAFTAS will be held on March 9 and 10 at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. The first event will award winners in the Non-fiction categories and the second event will award Fiction categories.
The NFVF and SAFTAS committee are still in negotiations with the public broadcaster for the official broadcast of the awards.
For the full list of the nominees, go to: http://nfvf.co.za/document/6th-annual-saftas-nominees-announced