Introduction

1In this article, we reflect on Afrikaans' transition from a hegemonic language to a minority language within the context of South African film production. We adopt Antonio Gramsci’s definition of ‘hegemony’ to explain how one group can politically and ideologically dominate another. According to him, certain institutions (like the media) (re)produce hegemonic domination (Gramsci 1971, p. 165). Gramsci’s concept is beneficial to understand how, in the 20^th century, under the hegemony of segregation and apartheid, the Union of South Africa’s government, and later the apartheid government, used the media, including film, to manipulate its citizens to accept segregation policies and apartheid as the dominant ideology and the norm (O'Shaughnessy & Stadler 2012, p. 197). As an example, the apartheid government used subsidies as an incentive to encourage Afrikaans filmmakers to maintain the status quo, to foster acceptance and encourage consent for its apartheid ideology. Veteran producer Emil Nofal stated in the eighties that if local directors were to succeed financially, they had to water down their productions to comply with the censorship board’s requirements (Tomaselli 2013, p. 15). Film censorship punished dissent and filmmakers who criticised the government’s policies (Jansen van Vuuren 2021, p. 161).

2Afrikaans and English were South Africa’s official languages until 1996 when the new democratic constitution recognised eleven official languages. Apart from English and Afrikaans, the newly added official languages were isiZulu, isiXhosa, Setswana, Sesotho, Sepedi, Xitsonga, siSwati, Tshivenda, and isiNdebele. In 2023, sign language was recognised as South Africa’s twelfth official language (Mothapo 2023).

4The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is supposed to ensure that the SABC adheres to its mandate to provide multilingual programming (with subtitles) in all official South African languages. However, it still primarily broadcasts English programming (Olivier 2011, p. 225), even though multilingual soap operas like 7de Laan (7th Avenue) are considered educational tools for learning new languages (Pillay 2023). 7de Laan was created as an Afrikaans soap opera in 2000, but by 2023, about 40 % of the dialogue was also in isiZulu and Sesotho. Most South African soaps and telenovelas follow this multilingual trend. And yet, in July 2023, the SABC cancelled 7de Laan, although it was the second most-watched programme on its channels. Being in dire financial difficulties, the public broadcaster argued that it was too expensive to produce the show and that, instead, it would broadcast reruns of old South African programmes in this timeslot. Many viewers lamented on social media that this was a loss for the SABC’s mandate as the public broadcaster to achieve language equity in its programming (Ferreira 2023). We use Ortega’s definition of “language equity” as considering all languages equally worthy; therefore, for the SABC to achieve language equity, it should balance its English programming with programmes in other languages (2022, p. 217).

6After South Africa became a democracy in 1994, most of the South African films released at commercial theatres were made in the English language. The four only exceptions were Lipstiek Dipstiek (Lipstick Dipstick, Willie Esterhuizen, 1994), a raunchy sex comedy, and Kaalgat Tussen die Daisies (Naked between the Diasies, Koos Roets, 1997), a comedy satire featuring a strip club and drag queens. Neither of these films would ever have been approved by the apartheid film censorship board, which upheld conservative Calvinist morals. The others are director Ntshaveni wa Luruli’s Chikin Biz’niz (which featured dialogue in English, Afrikaans and isiZulu) and director Katinka Heyns’ Paljas (Magic/Clown, 1997).

7Paljas was South Africa's first-ever entry in the Oscars Best Foreign Language Film category. Paljas’s producer, Anant Singh, known for anti-apartheid struggle films like The Stick (1988) and Sarafina (1992), explained his motivation behind producing an Afrikaans film in this way:

“Paljas is my first Afrikaans language film, and I hope that it is successful in its bid for an Oscar consideration as it will provide a bigger profile for South African films abroad as it showcases an authentic South African story in an indigenous language and an indigenous cast”(Tomaselli 2006, p. 51)

The Origins of Afrikaans

10The Afrikaans language dates to the 17th century when European explorers and traders interacted with the earliest inhabitants of the Cape, the indigenous Khoe/Khoe Khoe. Dutch sailors and the local Khoe (consisting mainly of the Goringhaikona) learned certain words from each other, and many contemporary Afrikaans words originated from those interactions (Van Rensburg 2012, p. 15).

11In 1652, a prominent Dutch East India Company employee, Jan van Riebeeck, and ninety European men established a trading post near where Cape Town stands today (Van Rensburg 2012 p. 17). Van Riebeeck soon convinced his employers to develop a fully-fledged colony, and in 1658, the Dutch brought slaves to the Cape to build a fortress and work in agriculture. Since these enslaved people hailed from all corners of the Dutch colonies (especially from areas today known as Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula, Madagascar, Java, and Sri Lanka), they used a language amongst themselves and others which sounded like that of their Dutch masters, but also incorporated words from their original languages. Their Creole further borrowed critical words from the Khoe language family. Linguists dubbed this language Kaaps. The French Huguenots and German immigrants who arrived later also acquired Kaaps to communicate with their servants, and scholars regard this as the birth of Afrikaans (Van Rensburg 2012 p. 45).

12By 1690, white settler farmers and the Khoe Khoe, who needed added grazing land for their livestock, migrated in small, separate groups across the mountains to the country's north. These emigrations continued for the next two centuries. Though the migrant Khoe and white farmers’ Afrikaans still contained Dutch elements, it differed substantially from the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands (Van Rensburg 2012, p. 43). While these migrants moved steadily north, their paths frequently and violently crossed with the Nguni groups (who spoke mainly isiXhosa and isiZulu) and the Sotho-Tswana groups (Ross 2002, p. 33).

13The British Empire colonised the Cape in 1795, taking over the Dutch’s regional role. The resulting influence is that English is still, to this day, South Africa's lingua franca (Olivier 2011, p. 225). By 1830, Afrikaans-speaking farmers were tired of the British administration and these Voortrekkers (front-trekkers). - roughly 20 % of the Cape Colony’s population – migrated north and created their republics in the areas today known as Gauteng and the Free State (Ross 2002, p. 49).

Afrikaans and the 20th-century South African Film Industry

15By the late 19^th century, Afrikaans’ growth as a language intersected with the film industry’s development. Notably, the South African War was among the first international conflicts to be filmed, marking the advent of war journalism and documentary filmmaking (Stearn, 2014, p. 213).

17Schlesinger would later build the largest film studio in the southern hemisphere, Killarney Film Studios, where he would produce landmark South African films like South Africa’s first-ever film with audible dialogue, Sarie Marais (1931). Sarie Marais deviated from conventional dialogue-centric storytelling. The filmmakers adopted an avant-garde methodology, harmonising melodies with the visual elements, highlighting music's capacity as a captivating narrative tool that would decades later become the norm in music video formats.

18The South African government enacted the National Censorship Act in 1931, swiftly followed by the Entertainment Act, which required pre-approval for any film content intended for public display. These legal impositions and strict control consistently manipulated film production and exhibition, imposing limitations on filmmakers and distributors (Tomaselli 2013, p. 30).

21The National Party assumed power in 1948, and in the following years, more local Afrikaans films were made, often funded by businesses. These films displayed poor aesthetic techniques but were still appreciated by the lower and middle-class white South Africans who frequented the drive-ins. Jamie Uys entered the film industry during this period with his first box office hit, Daar Doer, in Die Bosveld (Far Away in the Bushveld, 1951). Uys would become one of the most popular Afrikaans filmmakers at home and abroad with The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), which echoed many tropes and plot points of his 1951 film. In 1956, Uys and other notable South African producers, formed the Motion Picture Producers Association (MPPA) to lobby the government to create a subsidy scheme to benefit local filmmaking (Tomaselli 1989, p. 33). The resulting subsidy system favoured films that fared well at the box office since a movie had to earn a minimum amount through ticket sales before qualifying for the subsidy (Botha 2006, p. 25).

23Producers thus did not want to take the risk on films that could potentially be banned since a film would only get the subsidy after being screened in theatres. It meant that filmmakers who did not criticise apartheid society and repeated the accepted myths and narratives in their stale recipe-driven films were the ones that benefited the most from the subsidy. Audiences were conditioned to watch films made “from a white Western-orientated frame of reference” that conformed to the ruling class’ ideology (Botha & Van Aswegen 1992, p. 133). Through the Control board the government was thus able to adapt a soft approach to manufacture consent, while in cases like the 1966 Sharpeville or the 1976 school strike, the police and the army enforced compliance and suppressed dissent through violence (O'Shaughnessy & Stadler 2012, p. 205).

25Die Kandidaat (1968) revealed the governing Nationalist Party’s obsession with race, Calvinistic morality, patriarchal norms, and paternalistic control. In the film, the leading candidate, Dr Jan le Roux, interviews for the executive chair position of an esteemed foundation. However, in the interview, he is found wanting because his fiancée is English (and belongs to the Roman Catholic Church instead of the Dutch Reformed Church) and because he refuses to give up his ideals for those of the foundation. Here, Rautenbach and Nofal exposed ‘the ideal Afrikaner’ as defined by the ruling National Party propaganda.

26The film Katrina portrayed the complexities faced by individuals involved in interracial relationships, especially during apartheid, when it was against the law to have intercourse or get married to a person of another race. It features a ‘coloured’ woman with a light complexion who passes for white. Unlike the rest of her family, she was, therefore, not subjected to the discriminatory laws in South Africa. However, in order to successfully pass, she leaves with her son Paul and breaks all ties with her family. After a while, she falls in love with a white reverend (Alex). Paul, who recently qualified as a doctor (and is oblivious to his mixed heritage), becomes engaged to a white Afrikaans woman. Alex learns about Katrina’s race from her brother Adam, and at first, he accepts Katrina. But Adam keeps pestering Alex, telling him that all humans are prejudiced, even men of faith. He finally convinces him that if he marries Katrina, their children might look physically different from him. Alex leaves Katrina, and she commits suicide by walking into the sea. Katrina’s risqué subject matter meant it could not qualify for the subsidy scheme. This confirms Gramsci’s analysis that there is often a positive reward for those who adhere to the status quo—such as the many other Afrikaans filmmakers who did not dare criticise apartheid laws in their stories.

27With both Die Kandidaat (1968) and Katrina (1969), the censorship board requested that Rautenbach cut dialogue and even complete scenes because they were deemed too controversial in their probing critique of Afrikaner identity and government policies (Botha, 2006, p. 15). Despite these cuts, Rautenbach’s subtle thematic critique still came across through clever symbolism in the screenplays (which he wrote himself). For example, in Die Kandidaat, the central characters and committee responsible for interviewing ‘the candidate’ all represent the cornerstones of white Afrikaans society: the Afrikaans matriarch (and protector of morality), the Dutch Reformed Church Minister, a representative of the Afrikaans Language board, a civil servant, and an established author. The committee interrogates Le Roux about his abilities to be ‘the ideal Afrikaner’ but then discovers that one or two aspects of the ‘ideal Afrikaner’ are missing from each of its members. The standards to be an ‘ideal Afrikaner’ were too high.

28In Rautenbach’s next film, Jannie Totsiens (Jannie Goodbye, 1970), the main character, Jannie, is admitted to an asylum after turning mute. With this film, Rautenbach implied that the Afrikaans artist no longer had a voice. He found himself in the asylum with a few familiar faces that the viewer encountered in Die Kandidaat, again implying that the Afrikaners were being driven insane by their ideologies. Jannie Totsiens was an avant-garde film that employed postmodern techniques, such as pastiche, symbols, unreliable narration and self-reflexivity. As such, Rautenbach implied in a later interview that members of the censorship board did not entirely understand the film's narrative and message. Unfortunately, the audience members also did not understand or enjoy the film, and it was the first of Rautenbach’s films that suffered a loss at the box office. (Jansen van Vuuren 2016). These Afrikaans films significantly contributed to South African cinema and indicated that even films made in ‘the language of the oppressor’ could challenge the oppressive system within society (Botha 2012, p. 66; Marx 2014, p. 234).

30The SABC provided the country’s first television broadcasts in 1976. Having the sole mandate, the state broadcaster provided serialised television programming, which led to declining cinema attendance. This, in turn, affected the subsidies since the latter were closely tied to ticket sales. The SABC announced in 1983 that it would commission more films since Hollywood was boycotting the country. As a result, the 1980s were overshadowed by production companies rushing to release poor-quality films to claim subsidies. However, a few exceptionally creative Afrikaans feature films were created in this period, such as Koos Roets’s clever satire Die Groen Faktor (The Green Factor 1984), which critiqued racial discrimination and Manie van Rensburg’s The Native Who Caused All the Trouble (1989). When Katinka Heyns’s film Fiela se Kind (1987) was released, the leading actress who was classified as Coloured, Shaleen Surtie-Richards, refused to attend the film’s première in the Northern Cape unless the physical wall that segregated the white and coloured audience was broken down. Because of the film’s demand among audiences, the cinema owners agreed (Jansen van Vuuren 2022, p. 165).

Post-Apartheid Afrikaans Film Production

31The South African film industry underwent a transformative phase in the 1990s. The Film and Broadcasting Foundation (FBF) championed an inclusive South African film culture. The White Paper and the Film Strategy Document were accepted in 1996, leading to the formation of the National Film and Video Foundation (Botha 2007, p. 32). However, the subsidy and tax-benefit schemes were discontinued. South African film production decreased by almost 70 % in this decade, with Botha (2007, p. 42) explaining: “Despite the establishment of the NFVF and significant positive initiatives to develop audiences for South African films, local filmmakers are struggling to find an audience for their work.” Botha then names South African films produced in this period that received international acclaim but performed poorly at local cinemas. Ultimately, Botha (2007, p. 43) states that cinema depends on viewers willing to purchase a movie ticket and that there can be no industry without a paying audience:

32In the future, audience development will become crucial in creating audiences for post-apartheid cinema. Our film industry has been held to ransom for decades by the developed markets’ funding and exhibition models, content and distribution strengths, and the worldwide dominance of Hollywood. Hollywood dominates 99 % of screen time in South African cinemas.

33Botha aptly elucidates a problem that still haunts the South African industry today – the monopoly of the Hollywood studios at local cinemas (which are always made in English). He gives a good suggestion for countering this impact on indigenous productions:

The unfair competition and massive marketing budgets of Hollywood studio-backed film releases reduce the chances of South African box-office success at the cinema level. Introducing incentivised screen quotas for domestic and African film theatrical releases thus becomes a necessary intervention. France and South Korea are important case studies in this regard.

34Yet even though Botha was an advisor for the NFVF and gave input on the white paper, his above suggestions were disregarded. While the Afrikaans film audience was cultivated during the apartheid years, Afrikaans filmmakers struggled to get funding to produce feature films. Instead, they turned their attention to producing television content for the SABC.

36Paljas (1998), Yesterday (Darrel Roodt, 2004), Tsotsi (Gavin Hood, 2005), and U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (Carmen in Khayelitsha, Mark Dornford-May, 2005) were some of the few indigenous language films released in this period. Yesterday was in isiZulu, U-Carmen eKhayelitsha in isiXhosa, while Tsotsi used a mixture of isiZulu, Sesotho, and isiXhosa, widely spoken in Johannesburg townships. U-Carmen won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Yesterday and Tsotsi were nominated for the Oscars, and Tsotsi won in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Yet none of these films were successful at the box office. Tsotsi failed at cinemas before its Oscar win. After its victory, its rerelease at the cinema drew more viewers but still could not compete with the success of its Hollywood counterparts in the same period. In contrast, Paljas (1998) fared quite well considering that it was an art house film and that this type of film generally does not attract South African audiences. According to its distributor at Ster Kinekor, Ludwig Wagner, the film made 2,5 million rands at the box office (Wagner, 2023). This speaks to the loyalty of the Afrikaans audience, who will often support an Afrikaans film just because it is made in their native language.

Financing Contemporary Afrikaans Films

37Historically, as explained in this article, apartheid-era subsidies favoured Afrikaans films. Post-apartheid Afrikaans films have meagre budgets compared to those produced in the previous dispensation. With the challenges of globalisation and economic vulnerability, especially since 2010, the Afrikaans film industry resorted to product placement as a funding model where barter deals are made to promote a particular product in a feature film in exchange for funds. Some Afrikaans films contained so many product placements to fund the film's production that these films were described as long advertisements and were critiqued by scholars and film critics alike for their poor narrative choices meant to enable these product placements (Broodryk, 2015, p. 63).

38In 2009, the government (through the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) introduced funding subsidies and encouraged public-private partnerships in film production, in response to the low number of local films produced in the country post-1994. These initiatives led to a drastic increase in Afrikaans film production in the following years, starting with the release of the popular musical and box office success Liefling (Sweetheart, Brian Weber 2010).

41Despite these successes, filmmakers who asked to remain anonymous told the authors that “many government agencies that provide film funding, like the Industrial Development Corporation and the Department of Sports Arts and Culture, “are a mess”. Therefore, South African filmmakers, regardless of race, are hampered due to government maladministration that include non-sensical bureaucratic red tape, slow processing times, no transparency in decision-making processes”. They can no longer rely on subsidy schemes, as the funding can take years to be paid to producers, if it is paid at all, despite financing guarantees given during a film’s development and pre-production phase (Planting 2021). According to Afrikaans filmmaker Dries Scholtz (2023), this hinders South African filmmakers' ability to make indigenous language films since they now have to consider making English-language content for the American market to earn a living. However, many Afrikaans filmmakers manage to stay afloat and to produce Afrikaans content through the financial assistance of the satellite television channel, kykNET.

42Multichoice, a multichannel digital satellite broadcasting service, was launched in 1995. Initially directed at South Africa, it soon expanded into the rest of Africa, and its “dominance of the broadcast television market meant that it profoundly shaped mass culture on the continent” (Jacobs 2019, p. 88). In the nineties, the SABC had larger budgets than Multichoice and was considered a primary promoter of Afrikaans content. However, the situation changed drastically in 2005, as kykNET actively began to produce Afrikaans drama series and the SABC slowly but surely decreased its Afrikaans offerings.

43Since 2014, kykNET has amplified its commitment to the Afrikaans film industry, introducing an innovative pre-buying system, even for films produced mainly for cinema release. Though they are a satellite television broadcaster, they actively encourage their Afrikaans films to be released on cinema since it contributes to the film’s prestige (Anonymous Interviewee, Cape Town, 2024). For the same reason, kykNET also funded the Silwerskerm Film Festival. Their initiative provides filmmakers with essential financial support upfront, enabling them to secure broadcasting rights before production occurs. KykNET’s executives consult on the screenplay, key casting and crew choices and occasionally take on the producer's mantle. KykNET functions like a studio that not only supervises film production but also spearheads the marketing and promotional aspects, like broadcasting their films’ trailers and “behind the scenes” promotional videos on their channel, which enjoys a large Afrikaans subscriber base. Yet, financial factors rather than strict loyalty towards the Afrikaans language play a role here, since this type of coverage has not been applied to Afrikaans films produced outside of kykNET (Anonymous Interviewee, Dubai, 2024).

44Despite being a commercial broadcaster, kykNET has funded several art-house films in the last couple of years, such as Raaiselkind (Riddle Child, André Velts, 2017), Kanarie (Canary, Christiaan Olwagen, 2018), Fiela se Kind (Fiela’s Child, Brett Michael Innes, 2019), Toorbos (Dream Forest, René van Rooyen, 2019), and Stiekyt (Stand Out, Etienne Fourie, 2022).

45Fiela se Kind (2019) is an adaptation of the similar-titled Dalene Matthee novel. The story of a coloured mother’s love for her white adopted son, Benjamin, was also adapted to film by Katinka Heyns in 1987. While the 1987 version was framed from Benjamin’s perspective, the new version gave more agency and screen time to Fiela’s voice. Toorbos (2019), also based on a famous Dalene Matthee novel, is an eco-feminist-driven film that centres on the protagonist’s identity as a forest woman and depicts her love for nature, specifically for the trees and the forest where she grew up.

46Kanarie (Christiaan Olwagen, 2018) is loosely based on the struggle that the composer, Charl-Johan Lingenfelder, faced when he was conscripted into the South African Defence Force during the eighties. He was coming to grips with his repressed sexuality in a homophobic South Africa where homosexuality could lead to a prison sentence.

47Another film representing the voice of the LGBTQ+ community is Stiekyt (Etienne Fourie, 2022), a quirky murder mystery film set in a drag club. Both Kanarie and Stiekyt would have been banned during apartheid had they managed to secure funding from the conservative Afrikaans capital. Thus, it came as a blow to the producers when the South African selection committee for the 2023 Oscar awards opted not to enter Stiekyt for the awards. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film criteria specifies that films cannot be in English, and Stiekyt was the only film on the shortlist that was not in English. However, the committee decided not to enter a film at all rather than enter one that was, in their words, “not distinctly South African”.

48A filmmaker who was on this panel and chose to remain anonymous confirmed to the authors that the committee harshly criticized the film’s all-white cast and felt that this was not “representative of South Africa” (Anonymous Interviewee, 2024, Durban). The committee’s letter to the producers, however, instead focused on the “regrettable depiction of a marginalised group”. This greatly upset the filmmakers since most of the cast and crew belong to the LGTBQ+ community. “The fact that you’re telling queer filmmakers that we’re telling our stories in the wrong way, I find that to be incredibly problematic,” one of the film’s producers, Brett Michael Innes, told Variety (Vourlias, 2022). In the same article, Innes compared the incident to be reminiscent of apartheid. After this controversy, Stiekyt was not released in cinemas.

49Without solid government funding, most Afrikaans filmmakers we interviewed confirmed that kykNET’s support offers a comprehensive safety net, minimising the traditional risks associated with film production. One could conclude that in the current environment, producing an Afrikaans film without the support of kykNET seems almost impossible. However, the same filmmakers expressed frustration about the channel’s authoritative input, which often hinders their creative decision-making. With the strong emergence of competition from international streamers like Netflix and Disney+, many Afrikaans viewers are cancelling their satellite subscriptions.

50Traditional Afrikaans viewers who frequented the cinema weekly, migrated to these streamers when South African cinemas were closed for more than eight months due to the hard COVID-19 lockdown. Therefore, producers are sceptical that the channel will continue to fund high-quality Afrikaans films for cinema distribution. And some viewers have complained in the Afrikaans press that the new made-for-television films broadcast on kykNET lack the strong storytelling that characterised their cinema films with longer production windows and postproduction times (Anonymous Interviewee, 2024, Cape Town). But, as one filmmaker explained, “One must realise that Multichoice is a business. They need loyal audiences to subscribe to their pay television channel. If they start experiencing financial difficulties created by a competitive streaming market, it will have repercussions on the Afrikaans film industry, which strongly leans on kykNET for financial support”, (Anonymous Interviewee, 2024, Pretoria).

51On a positive note, for indigenous language films, MultiChoice also funds made-for-television productions in South African languages spoken by black South Africans. This demographic is now considered to be the most significant buying market and drawing card for advertisers. Yet, these films now face similar critique than the Afrikaans films made during apartheid, namely that it is escapist fare that does not engage with the dominant issues of contemporary South Africa, such as government corruption and gender-based violence. Since it is made for television films, filmmakers also do not necessarily experiment with avant-garde film techniques. While directors Jamil X.T Qubeka and Ntshavheni wa Luruli have managed to make films in their mother tongue displaying a unique filmic identity, these films are few and far apart.

52In light of the above, stricter regulations and limited funding could restrict filmmakers’ creative freedom, leading to a narrower range of stories being told in marginal languages. Additionally, financial pressures may push filmmakers to prioritise commercially viable English projects over more experimental or artistic ones, potentially limiting diversity and innovation in Afrikaans film. According to Scholtz, adequate funding is required to increase the technical quality of South African indigenous language films in order to compete with larger Hollywood releases like Imax films. Yet, he argues that filmmakers must not snub streaming platforms, and rather target them as a future platform for Afrikaans content. Since many films produced for streaming platforms like Netflix still enjoy a limited cinema release, Afrikaans films should still have the potential to be enjoyed both on the silver screen and to reach a global audience on streamers, allowing for the promotion of the Afrikaans language on an international scale.

53Films like the ones discussed in this article, can create awareness and appreciation for the language by showcasing unique aspects of Afrikaans culture and heritage, contributing to its preservation and growth. Yet, Scholtz concludes that “politics and profit-driven incentives still drive the South African film industry in a society where worldwide market needs and tastes significantly influence the local audience”.

Conclusion

54The South African film industry stands at a crossroads, balancing creative expression with economic growth. Unfortunately, without reliable government funding, the private sector (like the Multichoice satellite service) plays a pivotal role in keeping the indigenous language industry going, by funding films in most of the indigenous languages. Contemporary Afrikaans filmmakers are still grappling with the legacy of apartheid but they are embracing new freedoms by exploring a wide range of genres and themes, showcasing the industry's diversity and talent. However, apartheid’s legacy still influences the perception of certain narratives in Afrikaans film, with a recent Afrikaans film featuring white drag characters excluded from entering the Oscars, since the committee did not consider the film to be “South African enough” to be worthy of being entered. Yet despite these challenges, the interviewees argued that by embracing diverse narratives and promoting inclusivity, the Afrikaans industry can contribute to economic growth and strengthen South African society. In fact, despite being a minority language spoken by less than 10 % of South Africans, the industry has found ways to generate funding to make films in a media landscape dominated by English. However, Afrikaans is only one of the minority languages in South Africa, and the country needs more films in the other marginalised languages as well to reflect the country's unique history and experiences while promoting social justice.