MINISTER DAVIES TO LAUNCH THE EMERGING BLACK FILMMAKERS INCENTIVE

MINISTER DAVIES TO LAUNCH THE EMERGING BLACK FILMMAKERS INCENTIVE

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies will launch the South African Emerging Black Filmmakers Incentive Scheme at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) offices in Sandton, Johannesburg on Monday, 15 September 2014.

The objective of the South African Emerging Black Filmmakers Incentive Scheme is to support emerging black filmmakers with an intention to nurture and grow them to take-up big productions and thus contribute towards employment opportunities.

Minister Rob Davies says the current Film and Television Production Incentive only consisted of two incentives with the objective of attracting foreign investments and to support the growth and the development of local film productions.

“In recent years, it emerged that many emerging black filmmakers could not participate in a fuller measure in the current scheme because it requires productions with a minimum of R2.5 million budget. In order to correct the market failures, government has decided to introduce an incentive scheme which is aimed specifically at developing emerging black filmmakers,” says Davies.

The South African Emerging Black Filmmakers Incentive is available to South African Black–owned qualifying productions with a total production budget of R1 million and above.

“The Incentive provides financial assistance to qualifying applicants in a form of a rebate up to 50% for the first R6m of the Qualifying South African Production Expenditure (QSAPE) and 25% thereafter for the reminder,” Davies says.

The Incentive will be effective from 1 September 2014 and be administered until 31 March 2017.

the dti has supported film productions to the tune of R2 billion since the inception of the Film and Television Production Incentive in 2004.