Skeem Saam returns to SAFTAs despite boycotts over voting procedures
After failing to submit entries for consideration at last year's South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs), popular SABC1 soapie Skeem Saam will be participating this year, despite several other productions boycotting the ceremony.
The awards again made headlines this week after Generations: The Legacy and Muvhango both confirmed that they would not be participating at the SAFTAs in March.
Skeem Saam did not participate last year after failing to submit material for consideration, but the show's publicist told TshisaLIVE they had taken all the necessary steps to make sure they were eligible for this year's awards.
"Skeem Saam is in a good space to enter the SAFTAs now because we have stabilised our production. We have enough material to submit and we are very excited. We have always maintained that we will enter when we are ready. We feel that we are ready now," said Percy Vilakazi.
Muvhango have boycotted the awards for the last two years in protest against the voting process.
Percy admitted Skeem Saam had their own concerns about the process but these had been addressed and the production was now happy to enter the awards.
"I think the concerns we had were addressed. I don't really want to go into detail as to what these were, but the fact that we have now entered the awards shows that we are now happy to play with other children. "
Generations: The Legacy confirmed that they had not submitted entries in any of the categories for this year’s SAFTAs.
“We have been entering the SAFTAs since the inception of Generations: The Legacy in 2014, hoping our talent will be recognized but unfortunately our cast hasn’t received such recognition from the SAFTAs. We opted not to submit entries for SAFTAS 12. We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our growing share in viewership and would like to thank our viewers for making us one of the biggest shows in the country." Generations: The Legacy spokesperson Gaaratwe Mokhethi told Sowetan.