The Gauteng Film Commission, under the leadership of the department of Sport, Art, Culture and Recreation will be hosting film screenings in the five Gauteng regions, from the 8th December to the 20th January 2018.
The School Holiday Film Program, scheduled to run over the festive break with a total of 50 screenings in all Metros and districts around Gauteng seeks to revive the now extinct bioscope culture that was precluded by the advent of the massification of broadcast television.
Bioscope was an organics evolution of a long standing African tradition of storytelling. The story telling, monuments, inscriptions, the written word and later films are used as tools to maintain identity, protect a way of life and secure a place in history.
The Eyethu cinema in Soweto and others in that mold around townships throughout South Africa were pioneers in audience development for the appreciation of film. The bioscope culture not only enhanced the sense of communality through entertainment but further entrenched the principle of viewership choice of audio-visual content that current film distribution monopolies deny communities.
The program aims to share insights with young aspirant filmmakers regarding the Film/TV industry, enhance audience development and appreciation of locally produced films as well as empower the Gauteng youth with emphasis on careers in the film sector and internship programmes.
The impact of the program will be to showcase Gauteng as a film friendly City region for both development of the industry and promotion of the city as a preferred production location – further creating jobs in the Film and TV sector.
The program caters for all age groups and has a multi-prong focus of entertainment, and training purposes through focus group workshops.
Download the programme here.