‘The Wild’ nominated for seven awards

17 February 2012
ANDILE NDLOVU

TUMISHO MASHA – also up for an award as best actor

M-NET’S The Wild might  be lagging behind in  soapie ratings, but has  managed to garner seven nominations in the SA Film and Television  Awards (Safta).

The Wild, which premiered on  April 4 last year, won an impressive number of nominations – one  less than e.tv’s Scandal! and  Rhythm City, with eight each, but  four more than the country’s  biggest soapie, Generations.

The emergence of The Wild,  coupled with the steady performances of free-to-air channel  e.tv’s soapies, may be no match –  in terms of ratings – with the public broadcaster’s three soapies,  but seems to be held in high esteem within the industry.

Between them The Wild, Scandal! and Rhythm City received 23  nominations to the nine received  by Generations, Isidingo and Muvhango.

The nominees’ list also opens  up the debate about quality  against quantity – while Generations commands well over six  million viewers, Isidingo just under 1.4 million and Muvhango  over 3.5 million, it has not translated into nominations received by  Scandal! (just over 2.5 million),  Rhythm City (just under 3.3 million) and The Wild (under 100000).

7de Laan, the Afrikaans SABC2  soapie which celebrates 12 years  on air in April, declined the call  for entries to the sixth edition of  the awards ceremony, like  SABC1’s Generations, which boycotted the awards in 2008 after  creator Mfundi Vundla questioned  the judging process.

Colin Howard, line manager for  7de Laan, said yesterday: “We  were unaware it was the National  Film and Video Foundation’s  (NVFV) policy to exclude productions from this category if they  elected not to submit entries for  consideration in the performance  categories.”

Howard said the reason the  soapie didn’t submit individuals  for consideration in other categories was because “no single  episode could effectively showcase the work of any single cast  member”.

The NVFV, which runs the Saftas, stipulated that performance  awards would be judged from a  maximum of three episodes –  much to the annoyance of 7de  Laan producers, Danie Odendaal  Productions.

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