An industry that once employed almost 32,000 people and generated more than R7-billion per annum has been halted by inaction within the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. Something has to be done, or South African filmmaking will be killed off - perhaps forever. Part one of, yes, a series.

Whodunnit?

It's like a gripping Western, full of dead bodies and bloodshed, except there's no mystery as to who the villain is: the South African film and television industry has been murdered by the South African government.

In 2026, creative sectors everywhere are having the life squeezed out of them. Corporatisation, consolidation and the rise of ideologically driven authoritarianism have left high-cost, high-risk creative industries like film and television scrambling for scraps in an increasingly small bowl. The Netflix effect has turned a standards-driven artform into an algorithmically driven distraction machine.

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Regardless, humans make films. Humans watch films. For South Africa, a country with infinite locations, hardworking crew, great conditions and an unemployment rate of 58% for young people -- the perfect labour pool for this sector -- how has the grisly demise of its film and television industry been possible?

Or, better put, how has this been allowed to be possible?

Well, at an institutional and policy-making level in this country, culture is worthless. Filmmaking, and culture-making more broadly, are not treated as major drivers of employment, nor as generators of economic activity. South Africa's culture minister is a faux-gangster troglodyte who thinks books are something you cook, while...