The Cape Film Commission (CFC) held its 8th AGM on 30 September 2008 at the Protea President Hotel in Bantry Bay.

This year the AGM’s theme focused on Global Competitiveness, Building Legacies and developing a Creative Culture.

The CFC`s Commissioner, Laurence Mitchell, said that the CFC was ready to embark upon a new three year business strategy which would focus on ensuring that the Cape film industry would become globally competitive as well as “building legacies through inclusive growth which would broaden our enterprise development and transformation agenda as well as focusing on developing a creative culture and capacity building which should drive our entry into the new digital media era"

In reflecting on key developments over the past year Mitchell said that there had been significant growth in the industry which has seen an increase in local content development, an Oscar Win for a local executive producer, Don Edkins as well as production of the Cape’s first full length animated feature by Sunrise Productions.

The CFC’s commitment to development and transformation took shape with the opening of the Runway Resource Centre.

Guest Speaker at the AGM was Patricia De Lille, President of the Independent Democrats.

De Lille was invited as guest speaker to give an account of her experience as one of only 20 South Africans who attended the recent National Democratic Convention in the USA where Senator Barrack Obama accepted his nomination for President of the USA.

In her keynote address, De Lille outlined how the Democratic Party in the USA utilized new digital media such as instant GPS cellphone messaging, blogs and interactive social media websites to effectively communicate with the largest audience in US Election history.

"New digital media platforms and the effective use of it in the political landscape offers us a unique opportunity to communicate with a broader range of stakeholders, and the Democratic Party used this with aplomb," Ms. De Lille said.

In his Financial Report at the AGM, CFC Board member Gary Edwards indicated that the external auditors gave confirmation of compliance with corporate governance requirements as well as expressing a positive review of the CFC Board and the CFC`s management operations.

The CFC Board elections saw the appointment of five new board members namely, Vuyokazi Matu, Tristram Atkins, Emiley Vollmer, Rafiq Samsodien and Sean Rogers. Tahir Fayker, Gary Edwardes, Jacky Lourens, Nezile Nthutha and Graham Allan were re-elected onto the CFC Board. The City of Cape Town and the Provincial Government will respectively be represented by Carol Wright and Olivia Dyers.