SAFTA nominations announced Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Posted on 17 September 2007 at 09h00
Nominees for the 2007 South African Film & Television Awards (SAFTAS) were announced at a function held at Johannesburg’s Montecasino on 12 September. Some 245 entries were received across the seven categories and winners will be announced on Saturday, 27 October at Gallagher Estate.
Only one fully South African film has been nominated for Best Feature Film, namely “Bunny Chow”. It is up against the co-productions “Catch a Fire” and “Goodbye Bafana”.
The TV drama categories are dominated by “When We Were Black”, “The Good Provider (Heartlines)” and “The Lab”.
In the sitcom category, “City Ses’la”, “Gabriel” and “Stokvel” received the most nominations.
Vying for Best Documentary Feature are “Heaven’s Herd – Nguni Cattle, Nguni People”, “Betrayal” and “Men of Gold”.
In the soap category – “Muvhango”, “Generations” and “Isidingo” were the most nominated.
The process of calling on members of the public and industry to nominate for the Lifetime Achievement and Outstanding Contribution awards officially opened on 12 September.
At the nominations function Chairperson of the SAFTA Awards committee Eddie Mbalo (also CEO of the National Film and Video Foundation – the custodian of the SAFTAS) referred to the SAFTAS as the annual celebration to award the best of South African film and TV talent.
“Last year’s live broadcast of the SAFTAS by our broadcast partner SABC was watched by 12 million viewers. We believe the SAFTAS are raising the industry bar by evoking the desire and aspiration to win the coveted Golden Horn Trophy. Our aim over the next three years is to develop the SAFTAS into an Academy that will be responsible for the awards,” commented Mbalo.
The period of eligibility for entries was November 2005 to 31 January 2007. Judging took place over three months, from June to August with 80 judges drawn from all sectors of the film and TV industry.
Overall jury chairperson Mandla Langa thanked all the entrants: “We know it’s not an easy task to expose yourself to scrutiny but without you the SAFTAS wouldn’t exist.”
Jury chairpersons were: Feature Films – Brent Quinn; TV Fiction: Soaps – Fiona Ramsay; TV Comedy – Jerry Mofokeng; TV Drama Series – Helen Kuun; TV Non-Fiction 1 – Dominic Black; TV Non-Fiction 2 – Sam Phillips; Documentary – Pule Diphare; Student, Short, Animation – Lance Gewer.
According to SAFTAS project manager Azania Muendane, a concerted effort was made this year to encourage entries of programmes produced for all three South African broadcasters, as the overwhelming majority of nominations in the 2006 TV categories were SABC productions. “We are happy to report that there was a definite increase in entries this year from e.tv and M-Net programmes. Although SAFTA regulations dictate that broadcasters themselves can’t enter the awards, they are free to encourage any production companies they have commissioned to enter their programmes.”
In response to feedback from the 2006 SAFTAS awards ceremonies that took place over two nights, this year's awards will be presented on one day (27 October), with the student and craft awards presented in the afternoon and all the other genre awards in the evening. The evening ceremony will be broadcast live on SABC2 from 6.30pm
