Sona 2026 leaves the creative sector behind

South Africa’s creative sector went into the State of the Nation address with a clear demand: recognition, reform and rescue. What it received was silence.

Just days before President Cyril Ramaphosa took to the podium, hundreds of film and television workers marched under the banner “Save SA Film Jobs”, warning that the industry was in crisis. They gathered outside Parliament and at the department of trade, industry and competition (DTIC), calling for urgent intervention to fix the collapsing film and TV incentive scheme. The rebate, once the backbone of the country’s ability to attract international productions, has been crippled by delays and administrative dysfunction. Projects have stalled. Payments have not materialised. Work has dried up.

Industry leaders say billions of rand in investment have been lost to territories where rebate systems function efficiently. That loss is not theoretical. It is measured in cancelled shoots, empty studios and freelancers who have not worked in months.

Against this backdrop, Sona 2026 was an opportunity for decisive leadership. Instead, the creative sector was barely acknowledged.

The president spoke of economic reform, infrastructure expansion and investment in logistics, mining and digital technology. He outlined plans to attract capital and create jobs. 

There was no mention of the film rebate crisis. No plan to restore investor confidence. No timeline for intervention. 

For thousands of workers whose livelihoods depend on a functioning incentive scheme, the omission was stark.

Where culture did appear in the speech, it was framed largely as a tourism asset. The president spoke of promoting traditional festivals, local crafts and historical sites as part of strengthening the tourism offering. He referred to the unifying power of sport and the richness of South Africa’s cultural diversity in building social cohesion.

What was missing was any recognition of the creative industries as an economic driver in their own right.

Film, television, music, theatre, visual arts, publishing and design were absent from the growth strategy. There was no articulation of the creative economy as a jobs engine, no commitment to stabilising funding structures and no acknowledgement of the mounting distress across galleries, studios and performance spaces.

For artists beyond the film industry, the crisis is just as acute. Visual artists struggle with limited access to funding and opaque processes. Independent spaces face rising costs and shrinking support. Many creatives have called for expanded funding mechanisms beyond the National Arts Council, better use of state-owned buildings as workspaces, mental health support and skills development pathways that recognise the realities of freelance life.

The concerns did not find their way into the address.

The silence is particularly striking given government’s repeated emphasis on job creation. The creative industries are labour-intensive, employing actors, writers, directors, technicians, designers, editors, curators, installers and administrators. Each production or exhibition activates a network of secondary industries, from hospitality and transport to catering and construction. When the sector contracts, the impact ripples outward.

South Africa has spent decades building its reputation as a continental creative hub. Its crews are skilled, its locations sought after and its storytelling globally resonant. But reputation is fragile. In a competitive global market, reliability matters as much as talent. When rebate systems stall and payments are delayed, producers look elsewhere. When funding bodies falter, artists relocate or leave the profession entirely.

The president did highlight investment in digital infrastructure and data centres, gestures that could, in theory, benefit streaming, gaming and digital content production. Yet without coherent policy and functioning incentives, infrastructure alone will not revive a struggling industry.

What Sona 2026 ultimately revealed is a persistent gap between rhetoric and reality. Creativity was praised as part of the nation’s strength but not treated as a strategic economic sector. Culture was celebrated symbolically but not backed structurally.

For a sector that had mobilised publicly, marched in protest and warned of irreversible damage, the absence of concrete commitments felt less like oversight and more like indifference.

The creative community did not expect miracles. It expected acknowledgement and a clear signal that government understands the scale of the crisis. Instead, it was left to read between the lines of a speech that prioritised almost every other sector of the economy.

As productions relocate, galleries close and freelancers reconsider their futures, the cost of that silence will not be borne by artists alone. It will be felt in lost revenue, diminished global standing and a shrinking cultural landscape.

Sona 2026 was a moment to stabilise a sector in distress and restore confidence in one of South Africa’s most globally visible industries. For many in the creative economy, it will be remembered instead as the night their crisis went unspoken.