2017 SAFTAs: ZANews wins big... again

The 2017 edition of the SAFTAs took place this past week and, as we are all now used to, SA's only satirical news programme, ZANews Puppet Nation, won big once again.

The categories the show won are:

Best TV Comedy

Best Achievement in Directing - Comedy (Alex Fynn & Johannes Theodorus Vermaak )

Best Achievement in Post Production Sound Design - TV Comedy (Neil Benjamin)

Best Achievement in Art/Production Design - TV Comedy (Catherine Anne Jacot-Guillarmod, Racine Tanya Williams & Simone Rossouw)

With the show consistently receiving recognition for its work, it is surprising that it has not yet jumped to a television channel with a much bigger reach or another channel has not at least attempted to steal them away from StarSat. Also, consider the fact that they produce their show for a DStv audience and not a StarSat audience: They frequently make fun of news programming that is available exclusively on DStv. For example, one of their puppet co-hosts is Justice Malala. He is a personality seen only on eNCA which is available only on DStv so one can't expect the StarSat audience to connect with this character they don't really see too often. 

Yes, they do upload their episodes in their entirety for free on Youtube, but very few people find these episodes as very few know they exist in the first place. 

Other SAFTA highlights include:

 Nobody's Died Laughing winning best documentary film,
ZANews' sister show, Point of Order winning best game show,
SABC3's breakfast show, Expresso winning Best Variety Show, 

50/50 winning Best Magazine Show, 

Special Assignment's 'Spieners' episode beating out two Carte Blanche episodes for Best Current Affairs Actuality Programme

SAFTA Nominees: News and actuality highlights

The 2017 SAFTA Nominees were announced this past week. As usual, there was once again controversy around soap nominations but here are the news and actuality highlights:

Best Current Affairs Actuality Programme
Carte Blanche (Combined Artists)
Saving Microbabies (Combined Artistic Productions)
Spieners (SABC)
So in other words, Carte Blanche is nominated as a show, and then a feature on Carte Blanche gets nominated in the exact same category. Okay then.

Best Magazine Show
50/50 (Clive Morris Productions)
All Access Mzansi (Burnt Onion Productions)
The Man Cave (Cheeky Pictures)

Best Variety Show
Expresso (Cardova Productions)
Jou Ma se Chef (Cheeky Pictures)
Sarah Graham Food Safari Season 1 (Okuhle Media)

I'm not exactly sure how a daily live multi-hour breakfast show(Expresso) can be directly compared to shorter, recorded and edited, episodic shows. 

Best Talk Show

Real Talk with Anele (Cheeky Media)

Republiek van Zoid Afrika (Brainwave Productions)

The Chatroom (Toxmedia)

Best Talk Show Host

Anele Mdoda - Real Talk With Anele

Karen Zoid - Republiek van Zoid Afrika

Bonnie Mbuli - Afternoon Express

In addition, ZA News, currently South Africa's only news satire programme, is nominated in eight of the Comedy categories, behind Those Who Can't, which managed to grab ten nominations.

eNCA. SABC News  Channel. ANN7. CNBC Africa. BDTV. These are the names of South Africa's FIVE 24 hour news channels. The only thing close to a nomination in an actuality or documentary or any category that these channels got was a nomination for a South African Heroes insert on eNCA. Even that features on etv so it doesn't really count.South Africa's news channels need to really consider the quality and not the quantity of their documentary and actuality programming going forward.

The awards take place on Thursday, 16 and Saturday, 18 March 2017 at Sun City.The Saturday ceremony, which is where ZA News will likely shine, will be broadcast live on SABC2.

News and Current Affiars SAFTA Highlights

The SAFTA nominees were announced this past week with various news and current affairs programming featured and nominated.

The best South African show you probably not watching, ZA News: Puppet Nation, received eight nods, being nominated in the Best Comedy Category, alongside Ga Ra Dumele, Kota Life Crisis, and Those Who Can't. They also featured in the Best Achievement by Supporting Actor in a TV Comedy for their puppeteers ( I don't know if all the puppeteers are male), Best Achievement in Art/Production Design in a TV Comedy, Best Achievement Costume Design in a TV Comedy, Best Achievement in Cinematography in a TV Comedy, Best Achievement in Editing in a TV Comedy,  Best Achievement in Sound Design in a TV Comedy and Best Achievement in Scriptwriting in a TV Comedy. If you want to know what the fuss is about, they do upload all their episodes onto YouTube.
In addition, ZANews has additional nominees in the Best Achievement by a Lead Actor in a TV Comedy category for Aggrey Loake  and Nik Rabinowitz. The director, Alex Fynn, is also nominated for  Best Achievement in Directing in a TV Comedy.

The current affairs nominees are:
Best Current Affairs Actuality Programme
It’s a Zama Zama (if you know where I can find this show, please let me know)
Dying for Water in Madibeng (Carte Blanche)
Insurance Taken for a Ride (Carte Blanche)

Best Factual Education Programme
Each One Teach One – Dancer
Groen Namibia
Durban Beach Rescue
Siyaya – Come Wild with Us: Season 2

Best Documentary Full Length
Shore Break Movie (Pty) Ltd (The Shore Break)
Undercurrent Film & Television (The Dream of Shahrazad)
WB Productions (204: Getting Away with Murder)

Best Documentary Short
Film Industry Learner Mentorship Programme (F.I.L.M) (Cape Town Carnival 2015: Elemental)
EMS Productions (Indians Can’t Fly)
VIA – Vision In Africa (Emo Adams – Tall, Dark & Afrikaans)

No nods for eNCA (whose documentary division was shuttered a while ago), SABC News Channel or ANN7.

SAFTA Highlights: Puppet Nation ZA Makes Clean Sweep, Again

The South African Film and Television Awards took place this past weekend and, as seen last year, ZA News: Puppet Nation cleaned up yet again, bagging a whopping 7 awards.

The jewel in struggling pay-tv platform, Starsat's crown received top honours in the following categories:

• Best Achievement in Hair and Makeup (Franci Van Den Heever)
• Best Achievement in Art/Design Pruduction (Franci Van Den Heever, Matthew Sanna)
• Best Achievement in Costume Design (San-Mari Calaca)
• Best Achievement in Sound (Lyle Bennett)
• Best Achievement in Original Score (Lyle Bennett)
• Best Achievement in Directing (Thierry Cassuto, Alex Fynn)
• And, of course, the big one: Best Comedy

Its only competitor in the South African satirical news genre, Late Nite news With Loyiso Gola, did not bag any awards, though Loyiso hosted.


The sad part of it all is that the show can only be viewed by Starsat's approximately 100 000 subscribers, and viewers on Youtube, which are usually quite few. I'm surprised another  channel bigger than Star One  has not yet made a play for the show that has made a name for itself in being of award-winning quality.


Other notable SAFTA wins for they newsy/actuality categories include Safe Haven winning Best Actuality/Current Affairs Programme and Think Big winning Best Educational/Factual Programme.


The Vula Connection, which aired multiple times on eNCA bagged two awards. As you know, Sabido is closing its documentary division, so the wins mark a sort of end of an era.


Expresso's Katlego Maboe took home the viewer-voted Best Presenter category. 

SAFTA 2015 Nominees: Unscripted and Informative Programming Highlights

Earlier this week the nominees for the 2015 edition of the South African Film and Television Awards were announced. I thought I would look at a few of the unscipted categories, and other categories that have some newser nominees:

The documentary film, The Vula Connection, which was broadcast multiple times on eNCA (and is produced by eNCA sister company Sabido Productions) landed three nominations: Best Documentary Feature, Best Achievement in Cinematography - Documentary Feature and Best Achievement in Editing - Documentary Feature.


In the Best Magazine Show Category, the SABC's 50/50 and Mooiloop is nominated alongside eNCA's short format show, Movers and Shakers, which is hosted by Vusi Zion.

Mover's and Shakers' Vusi Zion is also nominated in the Best Presenter in a Magazine Show, alongside Darren Green, from the SABC's Doctor's Orders, and the group from Mooiloop, who are nominated as a collective.

In the Best Presenter in a Variety Show (though by looking at the list I have no idea what a "variety show" is), eNCA's Jeremy Maggs is nominated for presenting weekly advertising and marketting show Maggs on Media. Also nominated in this category is Katlego Maboe from SABC 3's breakfast show, Expresso, Katlego Mlambo from eTV's Kasi-Licious and Phat Joe from SABC1's The Real Goboza.

Battle of the Satirical Shows
Both of South Africa's current affairs satirical shows, Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola and ZANews: Puppet Nation, are nominated multiple times in the comedy categories.

Late Nite News, which airs on eNCA and eTV, received four nominations: Best Achievement in Directing TV Comedy (Kagiso Lediga), Best Achievement in Scriptwriting - TV Comedy, Best Achievement in Sound - TV Comedy, and  Best Achievement in Cinematography - TV Comedy.

Puppet Nation (Which I would say is the one bright spot on the whole Starsat platform) received nods in all of the four previous categories, and a whopping 7 more, including one of the major ones, Best TV Comedy.



The 2015 SAFTA's take place on the 20th and the 22nd of March at Gallaghar Estate.