Africa’s largest TV content market, DISCOP Johannesburg 2016, will see thousands of international TV broadcasters, distributers and producers descend on Johannesburg for meetings, workshops and engagements that will drive millions of dollars worth of deals.
This year, as DISCOP Johannesburg expands its content offering, the market will be complimented by the inaugural version of the Joburg Film Festival (JFF). JFF is a unique film festival aimed to drive audience development by taking films to the people, transforming multiple venues across the city into cinemas that will screen a selection of top South African, African and international films.
This unique partnership based on the simultaneous staging of the industry-driven DISCOP Johannesburg event and the public focused Joburg Film Festival will create the largest film and TV event in South Africa.
JFF festival director Lebone Maema explains the importance of this partnership:
“The success of the Joburg Film Festival is going to be judged not only on the great films we present, but also on the kind of catalytic investment we make towards the development of the industry itself. This explains strategic partnerships we have entered into with various stakeholders. Our Youth and Audience Development Programme presented in partnership with the National Broadcast Institute (Nabi) aims to help develop important skills to grow talent resource for the industry. In the same vein, we are focused on reactivating cinema culture in the townships in partnership with KasiMovieNights. Our partnership with DISCOP Johannesburg for the Industry Programme ensures that we are taking the current industry leaders along with us as we take up this challenge.’
DISCOP Johannesburg has established itself as a major economic driver for the City of Joburg and more broadly for the African TV and content market, with the 2015 edition seeing a 50% increase in attendance to previous years and a host of significant deals being signed. These deals included Turner Africa expanding its reach via a deal with ConSat in Nigeria to air children’s channel Boing, TV4 Entertainment in the US confirmed a licensing deal with VOD platform Buni.tv (from Kenya) for streaming on platforms in the US and UK such as Amazon and RTI and Mnet who signed a major deal that saw Mnet securing significant amount of content from Ivory Coasts’ public broadcaster.
With so many producers, distributors and aggregators in one place, the opportunity to partner with a film festival to screen some of the country and the continent’s top films is clearly an obvious one, as DISCOP Johannesburg’s conference director Gert Botes explains, “We are pleased to join hands with the Joburg Film Festival and looking forward to expanding this relationship beyond the 2016 edition. DISCOP JOHANNESBURG will once again deliver high a quality conference, workshops and presentations, and by joining forces with the inaugural edition of the Joburg Film Festival, local and international attendees can really look forward to a holistic content experience.’
An integral element of this partnership between The Joburg Film Festival and DISCOP Johannesburg will be a high-level industry programme to take place at DISCOP Johannesburg, 2 to 4 November 2016 at the Sandton Convention Centre.
The industry programme will include a host of workshops, events and panel discussions aimed at providing industry players with an opportunity to learn and exchange expertise about current best practice trends in the world today.
Some of the areas covered in the programme include
• Spotlight on Women Media; panel discussion and awards
• Post-Production
As a further driver of the film industry on the audience development side, JFF will be taking films to communities and audiences where they live, work and play across the city of Johannesburg. JFF has also identified the youth for key interventions both in terms of audience development, as well as in regards to training and developing the next generation of film and content producers.
This month long series of community screenings and film industry career awareness workshops for participants who want to enter the film and television industry. The Youth and Audience Development Film Industry Career Awareness Workshops in partnership with National Broadcast Institute (NABI), are specifically for participants who want to enter the film and television industry. Participants will learn the fundamental tools of digital filmmaking, conceptualising, researching, writing, producing, directing, cinematography, and editing. They will also direct their own five-minute individual observational films in crews of three or four persons. The trainees will get a chance to meet and interact with industry leaders who will participate in the workshops as well as meet some of the stars and talent from the films to be screened, as part of the festival programme.
For more information about JFF visit the festival website.
