SAFTAs update

The 13th annual South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs), managed under the custodianship of the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), will take place on 2 March 2019 at the Sun City Superbowl.

The primary objective of the SAFTAs is to honour, celebrate and promote the creativity, quality, and excellence of South African Film and Television talent and productions, and to encourage entrepreneurship and the development of new talent within the industry.

Judging process:

The SAFTAs judging process is divided into two phases. In the first phase of judging, which began in November 2018, the 250 SAFTAs judges are grouped into panels based on their skill set. The judging process is guided by the overall judging chairpersons, producer Firdoze Bulbulia and South African singer, actress, and playwright Thembi Mtshali-Jones.

The panels receive content that has been submitted by various production houses in their chosen categories. All content undergoes an internal and external verification process. The verification processes ensure that producers have entered their content into the correct categories and that each submission is valid in terms of the entry guidelines. This year, OMA Chartered Accountants Inc. have been appointed as the external auditors and have completed the first external verification process.

The judges will spend the next three weeks viewing, scoring and making comments on the content. Their individual scores will then be discussed during the second judging phase.

Phase 2 of the judging process will begin in January 2019 as judges congregate in one venue across Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, and Mafikeng to deliberate and vote on three nominees per category. These judging sessions will be adjudicated by the external auditors to ensure fairness.

Production company:

The NFVF is pleased to announce that Clive Morris Productions (CMP) has been awarded the tender to execute and deliver the live to air production of the awards. CMP comes with extensive experience having produced some of South Africa’s flagship programmes as well as a plethora of live productions.

Nominees announcement and live broadcast:

The nominees will be announced in February 2019, leading up to the live show, which will be broadcast on SABC2 on 2 March 2019.