Mmabatho Montsho wrote scathing open letter to president Cyril Ramaphosa, blame him for not priortising arts in his SONA speech.
The film maker pens Twitter to president Ramaphosa after he congratulated her for getting the Best Short Film award at the 2020 Worldwide Women’s Film Festival for her film The Award Ceremony.
“South African creatives are relentlessly making their mark on the world stage and they continue to make us proud. Mmabatho Montsho’s short film, The Award Ceremony came back with a Best Short Film award at the 2020 Worldwide Women’s Film Festival. We celebrate this achievement,” he tweeted.
After president’s Tweet, Mmabatho Montsho took it as an opportunity of expressing her doubts,
“Upon seeing your tweet congratulating our film, The Award Ceremony for its international win for Best Short Film at The Worldwide Women’s Film Festival, I spoke with some of my colleagues so that the response is collective,” Mmabatho introduced her letter.
“Women in the industry still have no recourse regarding sexual harassment and exclusion. There is nowhere to report sexual harassment, intimidation, and exclusion based on gender.
“In short, we reach these milestones you celebrate against incredible odds. Please celebrate us by attending to our grievances,” Mmabatho said.
She also levelled some steep accusations against pay channel M-Net.
“MNET continues to exploit creatives off our intellectual property – our ideas – precisely what makes us storytellers and creatives. We are also aware of the disparity in production budgets between channels with black content (eg. Mzansi) and white content (eg. Kyknet).”
