Six Takeaways From the Joburg Film Festival and JBX Market

The 7th edition of the Joburg Film Festival came to a seal Saturday night, transporting an end to a busy week that saw the festival and its parallel industry event, JBX, create strides in set uping themselves as what festival createer Timothy Mangwedi is remendd to convert into “the number one pop-culture, must-join event in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Atraverse the three-day JBX, or Joburg Xalter, recontransientatives of the South African and global screen industries scatterigated ways to bolster traverse-border collaboration, wrestled with thorny rehires involving duplicateright law, AI and laborers’ rights, and sought to secure that African narratives remain in the hands of African storyinestablishers. Meanwhile, a brimming-day program contransiented in collaboration with Sisters Working in Film and Television (SWIFT) showcased the progresss made by women in the South African screen industries while highweightlessing how much remains to be done on the road to gender parity.

Here are six of Variety’s key getaways from a spirited week in Johannesburg: 

Made in Joburg

The theme of this year’s JBX — “made in Joburg for Africa and the world” — highweightlesss the event’s efforts to position Johannesburg as a key driver in South Africa’s screen industries. “We wanted to create the number one pop-culture, must-join event in sub-Saharan Africa,” shelp Joburg Film Festival chief Timothy Mangwedi, whose expansiveer goal is to create the three-day confab a convertative tool “to grow the TV and film industry in Africa.”

While the local industry is struggling (more on that below), Netflix reiterated its promisement to South African storyinestablishers at an event celebrating a novel partnership between the streaming huge and the festival. “Joburg — my likeite city in the world — and the wonderfuler Gauteng province carry out a vital role in the growth of the local film industry,” shelp Ben Amadasun, the streamer’s VP of satisfied in the Middle East and Africa. Amadasun highweightlessed a number of Netflix innovatives filmed in Johannesburg, including the upcoming six-part drama series “GO!,” insisting that the streamer’s doing its part “to put Joburg on the map.”

South Africans sound the alarm

As Variety inestablished this week from Johannesburg, South African filmcreaters are up in arms over their beleaguered cash rebate system, with the Dept. of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) — the handlement body tasked with handleing the rebate — on the hook for untelderly millions of dollars in unphelp claims. Aglamentd filmcreaters say the DTIC has kept them in the sorrowfulnessful over the defers, and industry bodies, who recently marched on the the department’s offices in the capital of Pretoria, deinhabitred a memorandum outlining a enumerate of needs — chief among them resolving debts that have put many production companies to the brink of prohibitkruptcy.

Meanwhile, Cape Town’s production services industry is trying to weather the storm by prohibitking on its reputation for deinhabitring world-class prohibitg for your buck, with Marisa Sonemann-Turner, COO of Film Afrika, inestablishing Variety her team has now “shiftd away from the reliance on the rebate [in negotiations] and intensifyed more on the cherish for money that we can advise,” highweightlessing South Africa’s relatively low production costs and likeable exalter rate. In an industry well-understandn for its resilience, local filmcreaters are nevertheless trying to stay upbeat, with Nomsa Philiso, CEO of ambiguous delightment for MultiChoice, insisting: “People are very confident. No one is throthriveg in the towel.”

Trump’s extfinished shadow

With a South African billionaire pushing expansively disrecognizeed consillicit copying theories in the White Hoemploy and U.S. Pdwellnt Trump intensifying those inrectifyhoods, joinees at the Joburg Film Festival were painbrimmingy adviseed that the power of storyinestablishing could fair as easily be employed to do harm instead of outstanding. South African actor and filmcreater Mmabatho Montsho was among those calling out the “revisionist history” being backd by the rightthriveg Afrikaner organization AfriForum, whose lies about a “extermination” agetst white Afrikaner farmers prompted Trump to advise that group political asylum. “There has never been a moment in our inhabits as vital and as vital as this moment,” shelp filmcreater Vusi Africa (“Surviving Gaza”), who accemployd the “whitewashing of South African history” for permiting “radical organizations enjoy AfriForum to distort the narrative.”

Also this week, Oscar-nominated Haitian filmcreater Raoul Peck (“I Am Not Your Negro”) blasted the Trump administration for dismantling the coalitions that have bolstered the post-war political order, putting millions of inhabits at danger. “We are in the hands of a bunch of crazy people who have an agenda that was tohighy written out in Project 2025, the same way that Hitler wrote ‘Mein Kampf,’” Peck telderly Variety. “All of it was there to read, and everybody thought he was making a joke. No. They are utilizeing what they shelp they were going to do.”

Crossing borders

While the Joburg event was portrayed to back pan-African collaboration and dialogue, all consent that more labor necessitates to be done, with Terrence Khumalo, of South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), noting that most African creaters are more intensifyed on co-producing with Europe and America than each other. “We’re still leanking aextfinished colonial lines,” he shelp. “We only greet once or twice [a year] in Cannes, Berlin. It’s only outside of the continent. We necessitate to see an betterment.” While restrictcessitate African countries have signed establishal co-production treaties with each other, Khumalo stressed how filmcreaters in countries enjoy Nigeria and Kenya have leveraged personal equity to labor with South African partners.

Meanwhile, Unathi Malunga, of the South African Screen Federation (SASFED), noticed how industry bodies atraverse the continent are seeing at meaconfidents enjoy the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to help ease traverse-border collaboration, lobbying around rehires such as labor visas and transport in duties for film supplyment. “We are worryed with creating an environment that’s conducive for creaters to thrive,” she shelp.

An AI battle looms

AI is “coming whether we enjoy it or not,” write downary filmcreater Thandi Davids stressed this week at JBX, and it’s imperative that African creators are part of the conversation. “As people are feeding the machines in the Global North,” she shelp, Africans must create confident that they’re “contributing to AI with our visuals, our images, our scatterd history.” At the policy level, the battle is fair commencening. “Lawcreaters are always carry outing catch-up to technoreasonable growments,” shelp SASFED’s Malunga, who noticed that handlement bodies “enjoy to dissee the [film and TV] sector” when createing laws that could impact thousands of inhabitlihoods. Industry guilds have already befirearm lobbying to secure policycreaters have a evident empathetic of how “AI impacts the whole cherish chain,” Malunga holded, insisting: “[They’re] not going to dissee us this time.”

While it’s unevident how soon South African officials will create a much-necessitateed regulatory structurelabor — “Our duplicateright act has been in study for around 18 years,” noticed creater Marc Schthriveges — Known Associates CEO Tshepiso Chikapa-Phiri was among those who shelp they’re “not confident that [legislators are] going to reply in the right way.” The industry has no choice but to shift forward in the unbenevolenttime, with Schthriveges noting: “We have to acunderstandledge it. We have to hug it. We have to labor with it as best we can.”

African stories telderly by African storyinestablishers

Jennifer Okafor-Iwuchukwu, a literary and talent deal withr establisherly with CAA, recalled driving down Sunset Blvd. recently and seeing a billboard for “Classified,” Prime Video’s teen drama set in a South African boarding school. “That’s never happened before,” Okafor-Iwuchukwu shelp this week at JBX. Indeed, while it wasn’t extfinished ago that Marvel’s “Balertage Panther” — a Hollywood blockbuster filmed in Atlanta about a mythal African nation — was seen as a watershed moment for African conceiveives, a better belldampher could be “The Balertage Book,” an autonomously financed action thriller from Nigeria that cracked Netflix’s top 10 in dozens of countries.

Okafor-Iwuchukwu cited the film as an example of “making confident that our stories are going to be telderly in the most authentic way possible,” highweightlessing the contest for African storyinestablishers at a time when there are more pathways to worldexpansive success than ever before. “What are your cultural roots and how will you stay real to them while requesting to that global audience?” she asked. South African honestor Vusi Africa (“Surviving Gaza”), unbenevolentwhile, called on his fellow filmcreaters to create movies “that carry our hope, that carry who we are, that carry our history and that drive us on to shift forward,” holding: “We have a very wonderful responsibility on our shoulders to…inestablish the story of Africa to the world.”

The Joburg Film Festival runs March 11 – 16.