CONNIE, MINISTER PLAN TO DEVELOP FILM INDUSTRY

MBABANE – South African actress Connie Ferguson met with Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Bongani Nzima and discussed plans for the local film industry.

Ferguson met the minister during her visit this past weekend, where she was a guest speaker during the ‘Pastors Wives Luncheon’ hosted at the Happy Hotel on Saturday. She met the minister on Saturday morning before attending the event. This publication received information from a credible source informing us about the meeting of the two, and we went on to interview Minister Nzima. He confirmed that they did meet and highlighted that Ferguson will be making a comeback soon.

Help

“We did have a meeting. We talked more about film production, because we also have film-makers in the kingdom. “If there is a possibility, we want the likes of Connie Ferguson to help us equip and strengthen our local film-makers in the industry. We will be organising her to come with her team to teach those in the local film industry,” Nzima said. He further shared that Connie will be producing a new series soon, and some local film-makers will be attached. “We also talked about her new series, which premier soon, we will try and attach those in the film industry to Ferguson’s upcoming series. We want them to be hands-on, and we think that in that way, we would be able to improve the local film industry as well as the quality of film production,” the minister said.

Nzima also shared that Connie agreed with the idea of working with locals, and arts and culture will be handling the agreement from now on. “Connie agreed with the idea, she said it would be easy for her to bring directors and other available film production specialists from South Africa. However, we want to see how costly this will be. I have handed over the plans to Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture (ENCAC) CEO Stanley Dlamini. My job was to only initiate and then arts and culture will continue with the rest,” he said.

Improve

Worth mentioning, the minister said they are willing to work with Ferguson to improve the quality of local films and production. “As cited in the recently-launched Eswatini Arts and Culture Policy, film and television have the potential to take local culture to the rest of the world. “Film and television are powerful media for transmitting culture through generations and to other nations. The Eswatini film industry is in its infancy and is dominated by small independent producers. Many of them produce documentaries, record events and produce marketing material. Very few go for film production. Proper production houses that are professionally run need to be encouraged. Film and television have the potential to take our culture to the rest of the world,” reads part of the policy.

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