How Frames of Freedom is Translating Academia for the Film Audience

On 5th August, 2026, the newly-launched Frames of Freedom, in partnership with FAME Week Africa presented a two-part webinar titled Africa Gendered Freedom in African Industries & Freedom of Representation: The African Gaze. The webinar was presented by Writer, Media Scholar, and Communications Strategist, Aphiwe Mame and Freelance director, writer, and creative producer Aishlyn Mulligan. Mame’s presentation, entitled Freedom of Representation: The African Gaze focused on how South African television shows including Yizo Yizo, Soul City, and Emzini Wezinsizwa shaped the way South Africans view themselves and what authentic representation means in an era of streaming and global media. Mulligan’s session on Gendered Freedom in African Industries was a deep dive into how women are represented in South African cinema, and what it would take to tell more authentic, empowering stories.

Frames of Freedom was founded by South African filmmaker, Godisamang Khunou, South African filmmaker and film scholar Siyavuya Mfenqa, and film researcher, Cynthia Mashaba. The intention is to create a platform where film scholars, filmmakers, producers, commissioners and policymakers can converge to discuss academic research within Africa’s film and television industry. Academic works, despite their innovative conclusions, are often circulated in and restricted to  the academic world. This makes it impossible for their helpful research to be translated by filmmakers and policy makers. This is what Frames of Freedom is keen on solving. The first session has happened while  the second session is underway. 

To understand what Khonu, Mfenqa, and Mashaba are building, Culture Custodian spoke with them after the first successful webinar. We discuss the motivation, its continental intent, and definition of success. 

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

What epiphany(ies) led to the need to create Frames of Freedom? Was it a specific African film research that could have shaped an industry decision (a funding model, a commissioning slate, a policy) but didn’t, because the channel didn’t exist?

Africa’s film and storytelling sectors play a powerful role in shaping public narratives, yet there remains limited integration between creative practice, sustainable development, and renewable energy awareness, including biogas innovation. At the same time, filmmakers, young creatives, and early career researchers often lack accessible platforms to translate research and ideas into practical, community centred, and industry relevant outputs. This disconnect limits collaboration between technical fields and the creative industries, reducing the potential for storytelling to drive education, innovation, and social impact.

For readers who aren’t familiar with the initiative: describe what you do, the cross-industry benefits of the programme, and the place of Frames of Freedom in contemporary African-centered film discourse?

The programme focuses on master’s, PhD, and post researchers whose work speaks to commissioning, financing, licensing, production, distribution, policy, and ethics of storytelling and wider interdisciplinary concerns such as renewable energy in the context of the film industry. Through a curated call for papers themed around freedom, we will develop the strongest research into practical presentations for festivals and markets such as Durban Film Mart, FAME Week Africa, and the JoburgFilmFestival. 

The University of Kwa-Zulu Natal will provide the program with academic backbone, offering structure, supervision, and academic integrity, while ensuring ongoing collaboration between researchers, the university, filmmakers, broadcasters, and other industry stakeholders. The programme will also open space for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of film, sustainability, and social innovation, including storytelling around renewable energy, circular economy solutions, and sustainable practice within the film and television industry. 

Godisamang Khunou

Walk me through the partnership origin story: was there a specific moment or conversation between FAME Week Africa and Frames of Freedom where this partnership clicked, or did it evolve out of something you were already doing separately?

Fame Week Africa is one of the biggest markets in South Africa and Africa, so we love to attend it in person every year in Cape Town for its incredible offerings. I’ve had opportunities to pitch new films at the market and last year my film Black Women and Sex was nominated for the Inclusive Lens Awards, so I have built a relationship with the team at Fame Week Africa. We decided to share this programme with them and they were the first people on board, and worked with us to make it what it is today. They are invested in industry development and it’s been incredible to partner with them. 

On curating the sessions. Who decided the topic list? Was there an open call, and if so, what got left out?

We curated themes for the programme around conversations on what freedom looks like for African cinema. We address two themes per session, and in celebration of August being Women’s month in South Africa, we started with Gendered Freedom in African Industries, and Freedom of Representation through the African gaze. The upcoming session on the 19th of August explores Freedom, Memory and Post Apartheid Cinema, as well as Creative Freedom vs. Funding Dependency in African Cinema.  We have sessions every two weeks with Fame Week Africa until the 16th of September, and what you can look forward to in September is Freedom of Minority Languages in African Cinema, and Culture, Commerce and Belonging. In the last session we address Queer Visibility in African Cinema, and Youth, Social Media, and Performative Freedom in Contemporary African Screen Culture. 

Siyavuya Mfenqa

From available communication materials, Frames of Freedom frames is an African initiative. But, a look through its programming suggests a geographical leaning towards South Africa. From the first to last sessions, the topics are although African-themed, South African specific. Is this deliberate? Is Frames of Freedom an African initiative that happens to have launched with a South African cohort, or is it structurally anchored in South Africa with pan-African ambitions layered on top?

We definitely have the entire continent in mind in our offerings, and invite filmmakers from all over Africa to join into these conversations. We face a lot of the same problems and want to create solutions, build our audiences together and collaborate to grow African cinema. The first cohort is South African but it is definitely in our plans to be PAN African, and include the biggest film festivals and  markets on the continent, as well as participants from different regions in Africa. 

Cynthia Mashaba

If it’s the latter, what’s the plan — and timeline — for the geographic shift?

Every cohort is a year, so this first edition will last until August 2027 and we hope to include all the biggest film markets, starting with Fame Week Africa, we are working towards the Joburg Film Festival and the Durban Film Mart, with mentors who are industry leaders to implement these innovative ideas. We would love to have the resources and capacity to grow it in the next edition, with participants from across the continent in the second edition, and partner with film festivals and markets outside South Africa too. 

Every of the programmed titles uses “freedom” — gendered freedom, creative freedom, freedom of representation. What was the intention behind this? And, was that a curatorial angle you suggested, or did it emerge from the research itself? 

The intention is to have themes that interrogate challenges, realities and patterns that we’ve lived with in our industry.  Through this research we open up conversations about how filmmakers maintain artistic integrity when projects depend on broadcasters, streamers, brands, NGOs or foreign funders.  This could explore whether financial support subtly reshapes African storytelling priorities. Through representation we ask, who has the authority to frame African identity on screen?  A study here comes to examine whether African cinema has truly moved beyond colonial and Western representational structures, or whether those aesthetics still dominate global circulation. 

The discussions are virtual and there’s a possibility of not getting a wide range of participants. How are you thinking about attracting important guests? 

The partnership between Frames of Freedom and Fame Week Africa has been very important and beneficial in attracting important guests and decision markets to join in on these conversations. Fame hosts a monthly industry gathering in Johannesburg called Last Tuesdays, where we’ve had the opportunity to speak twice and engage with the industry about the programme, and have the opportunity to network and speak to individuals on a personal level on why we think it’s important and it’s the right time for it. The markets include established and emerging filmmakers and decision makers, and partnering with them will create the impact that is intended for the programme. 

A session has been held already. What were the post-session conversations like from the participants? And what particular insights did it prove to you about the importance of Frames of Freedom? 

In the first session Aishlyn Mullen talked about  Gendered Freedom in African Industries, through her research: Re-imagining the female protagonist: Exile, isolation and identity in South African film, having researched how African feminism was represented well in Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s It’s Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection co-produced by Cait Pansegrouw and Elias Ribeiro. She showed differences in Western and African feminism in cinema through films that people know and can have engaging conversations on. 

Aphiwe Mame- Freedom addressed  Representation and The African Gaze through her research that examines how programmes such as Yizo Yizo, Soul City, and Emzini Wezinsizwa used television as a platform for public education, social commentary, and consciousness-raising, while also considering ongoing challenges around gender and LGBTQ+ representation. The audience engaged through the nostalgia that these programmes have for many South African audiences, and we look at the gap today where the mandate for entertainment does not include education for a lot of the international streamers, and how we can move forward and fill that need the cinema and television playing important roles for our national identity and building the societies that we all want to live freely in. 

The session was relatable, and even went overtime because of the engagement from the audience, and that excited us so much because we don’t want people to feel like it’s too nerdy or you have to be in academia to engage in these conversations because that is not true. It’s built for audiences that engage with these shows and films and they deserve to be there just as much as the filmmakers and decision makers in our industry.

Frames of Freedom centres its activities around researchers, filmmakers, producers, broadcasters, commissioners and policymakers. What practical insights and responses are you hoping to generate from the webinars? 

We will present these webinars and engagement, that is also used as feedback from the industry,  to the mentors of the programme that come from film funds, festivals and film labs to see what are the practical steps that can be taken to bring these new innovative ideas to life. We want constructive feedback on the actual research, approach, blind spots and solutions to find ways to work together to get a step closer to freedom. 

A year from now, what’s the evidence that this “worked”: a policy citation, a commissioned project that credits a researcher, a changed funding model?

The evidence that this programme was successful a year from now would be exactly that, research that is implemented into industry practice of at least one, out of the eight that we are working with. We will keep going, and keep growing to change all the themes that we are targeting in African cinema, and some may take longer than a year to come to life and  that’s also okay because it will be worth it when it finally comes. In Victor Hugo’s words, “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is an idea whose time has come.”