The conference marked the first time that wildlife and natural history filmmakers, producers, commissioning editors and broadcasters came together to discuss issues and opportunities relevant to the industry and explore ways in which everyone could work together in a single forum to advance broad interests and objectives.
Dr. Pallo Jordan, Minister of Arts and Culture, encouraged local filmmakers to establish a self-sustainable body to further their aims. He reminded the conference that South Africa is a country that has a rich natural history resource and is fortunate to have some of the world's finest wildlife filmmakers. The Minister further encouraged the gathering to take advantage of these endowments to create an industry that can contribute to the economic development of the Southern African region.
The initiative, led by Marcel Golding, CEO of e-TV, was attended by a number of international delegates including Mark Wild, Commissioning Editor at Animal Planet International, Andrew Jackson, MD of Tigress Productions in the UK and Harriet Nimmo, CEO of Wildscreen, the world's largest wildlife film festival, as well as representatives from award-winning magazine, Africa Geographic.
Debate was lively and topics ranged from campaigning funders and associated bodies to raise the profile of wildlife films, promoting the country as a premier conferencing destination for international wildlife filmmakers, the importance of nurturing local excellence and empowering black filmmakers in the natural history filmmaking genre.
