October 13, 2005

“By sharing our stories we can move our country forward.”
-One of the young filmmakers in our workshop in Cape Town remarking following a screenings of Charles Guggenheim’s BERGA: SOLDIERS OF ANOTHER WAR.

I am newly inspired about the power of documentary film to engage individuals across cultures, even continents.

This is a country of rich contrast, tremendous diversity and complex conflicts. Of course, the film and TV industry reflect the on-going socio-political struggle to come to terms with the legacy of apartheid and create a just society that offers opportunity and justice for all. But the immediate issues for filmmakers are not so different here as they are in the US - access to funding, opportunity to tell their stories, honing their craft, and finding distribution.

Racial issues here are in the forefront of conversations and spoken of freely. The language of political correctness where in one does not use the term ‘black’ or ‘colored’ to describe a person’s ethnicity is absent here.

The goal of our trip is to create cultural and business connections, sharing information about the US documentary film industry that will help provide access to the international market. A the same time we are getting a crash course in the burgeoning South African documentary industry, developing a program to bring S. African filmmakers to SILVERDOCS and look for films for our 2006 Festival. Our challenge of this project is to bridge the gap, while the three of us have a wealth of experience to share; we have also to learn what is most relevant filmmakers here.

The US Consulate in Cape Town worked closely with the Cape Town Film Commission to put together a week of workshops, meetings, site visits and site-seeing that seems to be a well- balanced mix that allowed us to share relevant information and learn as much as possible in a mere 7 days about this complex state of the emerging film industry in the new South Africa.

I’ve been to lots of international film festivals and met filmmakers from all over the world, but this experience has been entirely different. We’ve immersed ourselves in the local community and will adjust our presentation to accommodate the interests and needs of the local filmmakers here in Cape Town, and then again for the more commercially developed industry in Johannesburg next week.
- Patricia Finneran