The Scene Has Been Set: Jo'burg Film Festival x Multi Choice Origins Launch

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Johannesburg stages were set to perfection as a set location for the most prestigious event in TV and Film on Thursday, September 2nd. MultiChoice alongside the Johannesburg Film Festival hosted honorable guests, legendary actors, Film directors, producers, and TV industry people for a lavish afternoon for the Joburg Film Festival Launch x Origins.

MEFeater was invited to the event and we captured so many key moments, which are worth sharing with the world. In case you are wondering what Joburg Film Festival is about, it’s about storytelling, and capturing what’s happening. and highlighting the latest within the industry itself. Powerhouse PR Honcho company Duma Collective is the leader responsible for the MultiChoice Campaigns and with MultiChoice launching a campaign called Origins, A concept which has been “cooking for a while” according to Duma Collective, more young unknown creatives will get the opportunity to showcase their talents. Origins seek to get some of South Africa’s young, talented filmmakers, even the ones who are unknown and share their talent and knowledge with the rest of the industry. They have been highlighted as the faces of the Origins Campaign for the region. Duma Collective thought it was quite strategic to launch Multichoice Origins alongside the Film Festival as JFF recently partnered with Multichoice.

The faces for this campaign include Tony Gum who is a creator. She does many different types of art forms including paintings. Then there’s Manthe Ribane who’s a historian and carries a lot of history around black consciousness in South African history. Then there’s Sanaa Mothapo who is a young filmmaker who uses his phone to film stories around his neighborhood. Sanaa was recognized by Multichoice as a great storyteller whom Dr. Kani called a genius and a needed talent for this generation because of how important it is to capture and archive African stories.

“We are 1.4 billion people 64 countries Hola 2000 languages and dialects. We are amazing. We are brave. We are colorful. And these stories that we keep telling not only preserve our history, but they also teach our people who we are and they share our soul with Africans are now unapologetically taking charge of our own stories and we are sharing them as they should be with us as the authority to talk more about how this is playing out in the film industry.” – Multichoice Group, Group Executive for Corporate Affairs – Collen Dlamini.

During a conversation with SA Actress, Executive producer, and Coming To America star Nomzamo Mbatha, she mentioned how amazing it is to read about themselves from publications that actually do their research about an artist. Emphasizing how no one will ever narrate a story quite like someone from your hometown or country. This is obviously quite intriguing seeing that she has been written about in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter and many others and she still prefers the South African narration of her story.

Apart from the amazing atmosphere of the day, the food, drinks, and the vibe, Meeting with the South African industry’s finest talents and listening to their stories was quite the highlight. Legendary actor Dr. Kani who played the lead in Black Panther as the King and T’challa’s father (played by the late Chadwick Boseman), spoke about the importance of archiving African stories. Mentioning that every time an old person dies in his community, he gets concerned because initially, African elderly people are the libraries and storytellers. They have lived through Apartheid, and so many South African historical events, and because there were no phones, cameras, or libraries back then, these people remain the folders that carry the history of the country and as much as authors and narrators have tried to write books narrating these stories, no one will ever tell an African story quite like an elderly person who was there to experience it.