Save SA Film and TV Jobs Coalition confirms the collapse of its engagement with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, calls on the Presidency to intervene, and will begin a month of nationwide demonstrations on 28 January 2027
The Save SA Film and TV Jobs Coalition an alliance of eighteen industry bodies representing the majority of South Africa’s organised film and television sector today confirmed that its engagement with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has broken down. It is the third time that talks between the industry and the Department have collapsed.
On 22 October 2026 the Coalition wrote to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Mr Parks Tau, to place on record that the engagement had broken down, and afforded the Department seven days in which to remedy the position. That period has now expired without a response from the Minister. The Coalition will accordingly report the matter to the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition, is calling on the Presidency to intervene, and will remobilise nationwide demonstrations in support of a working film and television incentive.
The Department fails to comply with its agreement with industry
On 10 August 2026, days before the industry’s second appearance before the Portfolio Committee, the Department and the Coalition signed the DTIC Film and Television Incentive Negotiation Framework and Heads of Agreement (“the Agreement”). This Agreement paved the way forward for the Coalition and the Department to work together to address the backlog of applications and reopen the incentive, ultimately restoring confidence in the film incentive programme.
Since then key parts of the Agreement have not been honored by the Department. These include:
- The administration protocols for the current guidelines have not been agreed jointly.
- The working groups to develop the new guidelines have not commenced.
The target of completing a new set of guidelines by 30 October 2026 was not met.
Letters continue to go unanswered
Multiple letters from the Coalition to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition have gone unanswered this year. Earlier last month, on 7 October 2026 the Coalition wrote warning that the engagement was at credible risk of breaking down, and offered Minister Parks Tau the opportunity to intervene before it did. That letter went unanswered, as did the follow-ups to it. On 22 October 2026 the Coalition notified the Minister that the engagement had broken down and afforded the Department seven days in which to remedy the position. That letter has also gone unanswered.
The industry is left to ask how a working relationship with the Department is to be maintained when its correspondence is not responded to. It is a continued pattern of industry input going unanswered, and it demonstrates clearly that there remains a problem within the Department that the industry has repeatedly raised.
A pattern, not an incident
The Coalition’s concern is not confined to the Department’s non-compliance with the Agreement. The industry’s longest-standing complaint about the Department is inconsistency. The same guidelines are interpreted one way for one application and differently for the next, additional requirements are raised after the fact, and undertakings are honoured when they suit the Department and set aside when they do not.
Its departure from the signed Agreement is a further example of the same conduct. A government department that puts its signature to an agreement must be expected to stand by it. Where it does not, nothing agreed can be relied upon. This is not the first time an undertaking given by the Department to the industry has not been adhered to. However, there is now an Agreement setting out a clear and agreed framework, and it is there for anyone to examine.
“For years the industry has said that the problem is inconsistency – that the rules change depending on who is applying them, and when. That has always been difficult to demonstrate from the outside. It is no longer difficult. There is a signed agreement, and they have not followed it.”
The Department said it wanted progress
At the first working group after the parliamentary engagement, on 21 August 2026, the Department’s Deputy Director-General told the meeting that the Department wanted progress, that it would not allow any organisation to delay or derail the discussions, and that the objective was a single joint report to Parliament. He pledged honesty and frankness, and said there would be no circumstances where things are hidden. The Coalition will now report to Parliament separately, and how the Department is handling the current administrative backlog remains largely unknown. This is another clear example where the Department does not stand by what it says.
“The Coalition will not accept anything less than a strong, reliable incentive system that the industry and the Department have agreed on together.”
The budget will be underspent
Based on the Coalition’s projections, the Department will underspend its allocation for the film and television incentive this financial year. That is the consequence of poor leadership of the incentive programme and of a poor understanding, within the Department, of what the incentive programme is and how it should work, taking into account the realities of production. The Coalition will demand accountability for this.
A call on the Presidency to intervene
The Coalition is now calling on the Presidency to intervene directly, and does so only because the position has become untenable. How can a Department that does not stick to the Agreement be trusted?
“We are asking the Presidency to step in because it is no longer tenable that a department lacks both the capability and, more importantly, the willingness to resolve what is, in most respects, a normal administrative matter.”
The removal of Ms Nelly Molokoane
Ms Nelly Molokoane remains the head of the film and television incentive unit, and hence the unilateral and obstructive approach the Department has taken in dealing with the crisis continues. The Coalition has made clear to the Department that she will not be accepted by the industry as leading this incentive any further. This is a red line for the industry. The Coalition has, again, called for her removal from the Film Unit, and from any further decision-making on the incentive, a position adopted by resolution of its members. Yet the Department has failed to hold her accountable for the past and continuing failures in the management of the incentive programme.
A month of mass demonstrations, 28 January to 27 February 2027
The Coalition will return to the streets for a month of action running from 28 January to 27 February 2027. The two dates are deliberate. On 27 February 2025 the industry held its first picket over the state of the incentive. On 28 and 29 January 2026 it returned in far greater numbers, demonstrating at Parliament in Cape Town and outside the Department’s Pretoria campus. A month of demonstrations running between those two anniversaries will mark two years in which the Department has done very little to resolve this crisis. The Coalition is calling for accountability, and for action to be taken swiftly. The action will not end until the Department resolves this matter on a basis that works for the industry, for the Department and for the country.
Save South African Film and TV Jobs
Without urgent and decisive intervention, the damage already caused by the ineffective administration of the Film and Television Production Incentive will only deepen, placing at risk an industry that contributes significantly to South Africa’s economy and the livelihoods of the thousands who depend on it.
The economic and cultural value of this sector is not in dispute. It has been acknowledged by the Department’s own leadership. Yet that value is being steadily undermined by a failure to administer the very instrument designed to sustain and grow it. The problem has never been the incentive itself; it is what has been done to the running of it. Without corrective action now, the consequences may prove irreversible, leaving an entire sector, its workforce and its considerable economic potential out in the cold.
