A Film Resource Unit (FRU) Forum was convened by the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) on 27 January 2009. Themba Wakashe, the Director General of the Department, chaired the meeting which was attended by SASFED (South African Screen Federation), IPO (Independent Producers Organisation), TPA (The Producers Alliance), DFA (Documentary Film Association) and SACOD (Southern African Communications for Development)
The stated objectives of the meeting were to:
- · Give an overview of FRU’s historical mandate and current relevance
- · Discuss and analyse the state of wellness of FRU
- · Propose a way forward
Three members of the FRU Board (Anant Singh, Isabelle Rorke and Jyoti Mistry), who have been acting as the Executive of the organisation since its closure, were present.
Jyoti Mistry gave a presentation in which she outlined the Executive’s achievements since the closure of the organisation as follows:
- · Secured funding from DAC to overcome liquidation
- · Organisation’s financials updated
- · Complete assessment of organisational status – administrative and stock
- · Reconciling and paying outstanding royalties for the past two years
- · Staff retrenchments and arrears salaries paid
- · Creditors payments reconciled, payments made and updated
- · Operational expenditure reduced to a minimum
- · Organisation currently in abeyance and infrastructure stocks placed in storage
- · Researched options for the organisation’s future presented to stakeholders
- · Stakeholders meeting held in June 2008
- · Formal delivery of final reports to DAC and feedback in October 2008
- · Report offers way forward options for FRU
Three options for the future of FRU:
- · Closure
- · Moving FRU to the National Archive as a resource centre
- · Establishing a new entity
FRU’s resource and distribution role were acknowledged by all participants and a number of questions, concerns, and recommendations about what had happened since the closure of the organisation, and the future of FRU, were raised by in the discussion.
DAC proposed the establishment of a Task Team consisting of 5-7 representatives to thrash out the various options. The proposal was unanimously endorsed. DAC will distribute the terms of reference for participation in the task team by mid-February and nominations are to be submitted by 20 February.
Representatives were asked to submit their key recommendations by email after the meeting. The joint IPO/TPA recommendations are as follows:
Outstanding matters:
- · Producers who are owed money must be paid
- · Producers need to invoice for outstanding royalties based on royalty statements, which must be made available to all producers with outstanding royalties due.
- · Current FRU distribution agreements must be terminated
- · A reliable telephone number and fax number and email address should be provided as an interim measure
- · The IPO/TPA requested a progress report, which includes a financial report of FRU’s activities since the closure of the organisation
Recommendations on the way forward:
The IPO/TPA
- Endorsed the recommendation that a representative Task Team should be established to chart the way forward
- Endorsed the recommendation that existing FRU titles of historical significance should be transferred into some form of archives/resource centre for research and resource purposes. It was noted that this will necessitate bringing existing contracts to closure and negotiating new contracts with producers
- Recommended that an independent team of consultants be appointed by the Task Team to research best practice and make recommendations about the most appropriate structure for any future FRU, and for the distribution of South African films
- Welcomed the involvement of the DTI
