A black woman who etched her mark in the black South African filmmaking

Seipati Seipati Bulane - Hopa is a pioneer in the black film industry. Her engagements include film producer and executive producer on the international co-production of Takalani Sesame, chairperson of the Independent Producer's Organization and founder member of Pan African Women in Film, an affiliate of Pan African Federation of Film-makers.

 Seipati Bulane-Hopa Photo credit Artmatters 

I have met Mme Pati, as we affectionately call her, in 2016 during the occasion of PUKU Children's Literature Festival from a special invitation by the founder and director of PUKU Dr. Elinor Sisulu whom we affectionately call MaE. The festival which was held over a weekend, comprised of round-table-discussions where we were workshopped on how to approach literature writing for children. I was particularly impressed and inspired by Mme Pati's intellectual prowess and her warmth in sharing easily her wisdom with everyone. After the sessions I walked upto her and offered myself for adoption. She since then became my mother in the arts. Few months later I requested her to be the opening speaker for my fourth solo art exhibition The Heroines of Southern Africa at the Market Theater in Johannesburg to which she easily agreed and delivered a great deal of heroic literature on African women who helped shape this country.

She is an activist with a heart of gold for Afrika and humanity. In one of her addresses delivered at 9th Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) congress, at the Sandton Holiday In in Johannesburg, South Africa from 3-5 May 2013, where new policies and strategies to assist with the growth and development of the industry were discussed, in her capacity as a general secretary she said "As crafters of the African story- as creators, authors and originators and incubators of images of expression and representation- effectively moving into the 21st century, a sustainable and profitable African cinema still remains a challenge,"

Debating about the restructuring of the local industry in 1992, almost three decades ago, the Film and Allied Workers' (FAWO) Distribution Committee then chairperson at the time, Seipati Bulane-Hopa, described the need for cinema in our society in these words:

Cinema ... serves as a vehicle for people to articulate their different social affiliations and define their respective historic cultures, traditions, social and political experiences. If cinema is only used to entertain and not to educate, then the chances of transforming our society are slim.

Further reading on our featured icon here:

WHEN a mother heard that her 48-year-old son had been one of the victims at Marikana, she died of shock.
What would make a mother die of shock, for beyond the pain of sudden loss — ensconced in the depth of that heart — is fear of the unknown future!
The daunting, haunting, emotionally debilitating pictures that continue to saturate electronic and print media coverage of the Marikana tragedy are pictures of mothers, of wives, daughters and nieces of men who died during the bloody confrontation that took, but a few minutes.
As a film practitioner and a story teller, intrigued by the powerful language of the moving images, my mind reeled from the ritualistic animated images I saw on television.
I had to remind myself that what I was watching was not fiction, but real time life news.
In the midst of this rage and fury sits the silent majority of women and children with no real voices to articulate the horror of pain and anguish brought about by the conflicts and wars between men.
As a woman storyteller, the picture of pain has for so long embodied the African spirituality and personality that it has disenabled my desire, as a storyteller to capture its continuation.
As we look at the current psychological state of our country, it is clear that there has been a disconnection of some sort with our African spirituality where there is a distinct loss of ancient African values, ethics and social conduct.
The excessive demonstration of a disregard for women and children point us to this disconnection.
Television is the main evidence that exposes this lack of social values and respect for women as films that we show help to exacerbate and perpetuate violence against women and children.
The African spirituality in ancient Kemet summons us to the existence of Isis, the so-called earth mother goddess and Osiris the so-called father god or Sun God who we are told lived in total balance.
We are told that both these deities recognised their coexistence as equals who equally were subordinate to the role each one plays and respected reasons of existence each one had.
This coexistence is called living in a universe of complete balance where one force or power was meant to compliment the other.
As a film practitioner responding to my role as a woman within the creative sector, my analysis of its successes are based on a still deficit foundation of the development of the creative industry and the economic transformation of the sector.
Post 1994, both men and women who come out of the abyss of institutionalised social segregation and economic suppression do not have established film production companies they can say with confidence, show that they are critical part of commercially sustainable film establishments where we can quantitatively and qualitatively measure tangible economic progress that has critical turnover contributing significantly to our national economy.
The measure of success and sector development for us previously disadvantaged ‘natives’ would be very marginal if it does indeed exist.
So my struggles against my male counterpart are almost incalculable as we both face similar challenges for they are as economically emasculated as I am economically suppressed and oppressed as a woman.
So where do I begin to compete and seek justice for gender equality when I have no economic supremacy to talk about post 1994 ­— in the first place?
Tales of artistes dying with families struggling to even bury them is media coverage that has almost become a common denominator and an expectation among our world of artistes — some of these calamities do not even find their way to public exposure.
While the fight for gender equality remains of critical social and political importance, the fight for male emancipation within the creative industries remains an equally important point of intervention.
So how do we create the balance that Isis and Osiris had?
How do we as African women of the 21st century, walk alongside our men in building a nation of respectable men, fathers and brothers where we can truly begin a state of cohesive coherent democracy founded on mutual respect and mutual caring and love for ubuntu bethu.
Within this consciousness of a regard for balance I hope to see happen someday in our future, icons like our very Winnie Mandela, Wendy Luhabe, Queen Mujaji and Nzinga, and other icons such as Oprah Winfrey, Joan Rivers, Benazir Bhuto, have become pathfinders of our time as they take on male dominated professions and lead the crusade of change and positive perception builders of women participation in social change and organisation.
Until the 1980s there were essentially no women directors in the most popular country of the world of cinema, the United States of America and I know of no other women directors too elsewhere at that time and this includes South Africa.
Of the 7 332 films made between 1939 and 1976 in Hollywood, only 14 of those were films made by women directors, but there was a steady progression as seen in 1990 where of the 406 films made, 23 were directed by women and so the amounts increased as change became more imminent.
Struggles and benefits in the South African creative industry are not things one can measure with reliable precision as we are relatively still a sunrise economy that needs a lot of support — both from the private sector and government.
The battle for access as film practitioners into the SABC, M-net and eTV are on the increase and the lack of funding for local and indigenous content are also ongoing.
However, as Albert Einstein simply states it, “logic gets us from A to B, but imagination takes us everywhere.”
So for us to establish a viable sustainable creative industry economy, we should not waste too much time looking backwards to advance into the future – we need to seek and find new innovations for tangible benefits.

Source https://www.thepatriot.co.zw/old_posts/3710/