Left: MEC Ms Tasneem Essop Minister of Environment, Planning and Economic Development Right: Laurance Mitchel CEO Cape Film Commission

The Minister of Environment, Planning and Economic Development with the Cape Film Commission officially launched the Runway Film Resource Centre a strategic Skills Training and Development intervention on the 22nd of February 2008. The Runway Resource centre is a partnership between the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, the Dell Foundation, and the Waterfront Studios.

Premier Ebrahim Rasool in his recent State of the Province Address said that the Western Cape economy would stagnate or take off on the basis that relevant skill and human resources was developed. He further added that the provincial government took a set of decisions four years ago to make rapid progress on meeting the quantitative challenges in education as a platform to overcome the persistent qualitative challenges. It is inline with this that the Cape Film Commission undertook to extensively investigate the extent or lack of critical skills in the film sector that would continue to drive the country’s economy.

The Skills Development in the Film Sector research commissioned by the Cape Film Commission and the Centre for Extended Learning recommended that the Cape Film Commission should set up this initiative as an intervention to develop critical skills in the region. The issue of the skills shortage is affecting a lot of sectors in the country and film is not different, with lack of transformation and adequate training intervention especially from the seta’s is proving detrimental especially on the background of the high medium term demand brought by 2010.

The skills development study found that there is a serious lack of skills training and development interventions even though government has legislated SETA’s. In the last financial year MAPPP-Seta was allocated a R128 million budget to develop skills in this sector and it only spent about R9 million in the Film and Electronic Media chamber and roughly above 1.5% or R1.65 million in the western cape in only two projects, even though the Western Cape is the single most highest producer and economic driver in the film sector.

The Runway Resource Centre aims to intricately and systematically bridge this gap by providing strategic training initiatives to emerging filmmakers especially from the Historically Disadvantaged groups, workshops, enterprise development advise, administrative support, research capacity, networking opportunities with key industry players. The centre also aims to deepen links with other developmental agencies like Umsobomvu Youth Fund, the RED DOOR Business Advice Centres to bring meaning to this intervention. Through the Runway Resource Centre the Cape Film Commission will fulfil its long-term goal of assisting emerging filmmakers; the commission also envisions the centre to stimulate the development of the skills required for the projected growth of the industry especially geared towards 2010.

The Runway aims to be the focal point of film related development efforts across a broad range of stakeholders from national, provincial and local government agencies; to the many industry associations and community based organisation that make up the film industry in the region comments Glenn Gillis Advisor to the Cape Film Commission.

The skills development study also recommended that the Cape Film Commission should continue playing a critical leadership role and facilitate a coordinating body with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) to development long term strategic skills development interventions.

It was also recommended that MAPPP-SETA should play a more significant role in driving for Policy Development at National level while the Cape Film Commission lobbies at local and provincial levels to address the challenge of the shortage of skill facing the region’s film sector if the industry is to meet growth requirements for a successful 2010.

The study also concluded that the Cape Film Commission should seek strategies to integrate and link film training institutions in the region with the various industry sectors so the institutions can further improve their curricula and teaching methods to respond to the industry’s skills needs more effectively.

Using growth estimates from the economic Impact Assessment Report (IAR) 7611 new jobs will need to be created annually if the industry continues to rapidly grow at 15% annually, the IAR also established that the three main sectors in the province like Long form generated more than 1 841 direct and 1 063 in direct jobs, while the Commercials sector which is the biggest in the country generated more than 2 459 direct and 820 indirect jobs, and the Stills another thriving sector saw significant spending and job creation of 1 758 direct and 618 indirect jobs created. Chief Executive Officer of the Cape Film Commission Laurence Mitchell says that this clearly highlights the fact that the Western Cape now has a diverse economy and film has proven that it has a significant contribution to the country’s job creation strategies to accelerate our economy.

While the 2005/6 financial year achieved a turn-over of around 8 559 direct and indirect jobs, the cape film commission has recorded a significant increase in job creation in the 2006/7 financial year with 21 475 jobs created. With a reliable understanding of the size and economic impact of the industry we project yet another significant increase to 27 000 jobs for the 2007/8 financial year in line with government’s target of halving unemployment and accelerating poverty alleviation by 2014.

The Cape Film Commission in its Black Economic Empowerment strategies assisted over 858 black empowered businesses in 2005/6 and we project to double that figure to 1800 in the current financial year. We have also played a significant role in facilitating for the now economically viable and self sustainable Studio City South Africa a fully operational, large scale film studio that offers year round filming and we continue in our efforts to empower the previously disenfranchised.

In The 2006/7 financial year Cape Town based production companies produced around thirteen feature films. Moonlighting Film Production Services voted Exporter of the Year by the ABSA Cape Town Regional Chamber of Commerce produced five feature films including the world renowned Blood Diamonds featuring Leonardo Dicaprio and Djimon Hounsou. DO productions another significant industry player produced six films including The World Unseen which was premiered at the Toronto film festival featuring world acclaimed Lisa Ray.

The City of Cape Town in its commitment to driving the accelerated development of the film industry recently announced that it was scraping off all location fees to public open spaces meaning more than R4 million that the city made from location fees will now go back to the industry. The City of Cape Town also announced that it was planning to recall a large number of retired Traffic Officers to assist with the growing needs of the film industry as an attempt to further stimulate and drive the growth of the film industry.