The public perception of the film industry is historically fixed on the glittering half-percent of time filmmakers experience the flashbulbs of the red carpet, the weight of a festival award and the triumphant social media posts marking a project’s release. Yet, behind the screen lies an entirely different landscape. Independent filmmaking is a high-stakes, erratic gig economy characterised by crushing schedules, immense financial instability and an emotional volatility that pushes cast and crew to their absolute limits.
For award-winning South African director Meg Rickards (Tess, Kaalgat Karel, Snake), pulling back this glamorous curtain is no longer just an industry critique – it’s a matter of professional survival.
In an unfettered conversation with the Film Critics Association of South Africa (FCASA), Rickards unpacked the complex psychological toll of the local cinematic ecosystem. Having recently channelled her extensive experience working with minors into a specialised filmmaker’s manual, ‘A Filmmaker’s Guide to Working with Children’, she reflects on a broader, equally critical industry gap: the desperate need for institutionalised mental health advocacy across film sets.
The Hazardous Allure of a Vocation
Filmmaking rarely attracts those looking for an orderly career structure. It’s an industry notoriously populated by neurodiverse, intensely passionate individuals drawn to the visceral high of creation. However, that very passion often leaves professionals uniquely vulnerable to burnout and systemic abuse.
“I think it’s a very unhealthy lifestyle. If you’re working all the time in the industry, you’re likely to age very early and a lot of people have problems with addictions and marriages. It’s very hard to sustain. I’ve managed by having a very on-off structure – doing a film and being very intense, and then not actually doing one for a year or two. Financially, it’s a disastrous model, but it’s maybe how I’ve kept some of my sanity intact.”
This structural irregularity creates a volatile cycle of extreme emotional peaks and valleys. The adrenaline surge of a live, active set is inevitably countered by the isolation of prolonged development and post-production.
“The highs are very high and the lows are very low, and there’s a lot of very grey time in between. Young people see the publicity bits… but I always tell kids when I teach: don’t go into it because of the glamour, because it’s a very tiny, tiny pinprick in your career. It’s usually just slog.”
Financial Precarity and the Weight of Production
The psychological strain on local filmmakers is fundamentally amplified by structural failures in the funding apparatus. The recent years of administrative dysfunction and payment delays from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) have introduced a severe layer of financial trauma to independent production companies.
When the funding mechanism stalled during the completion of Kaalgat Karel, the burden of protecting the crew’s livelihood fell directly on the producers’ shoulders.
“The financial precariousness, it’s shocking. On Kaalgat Karel, that was the beginning of the DTIC meltdown, and they took over two years to pay out our final payments. We actually ended up, because we were so ashamed, maxing out our bond and paying everyone off our mortgage – re-maxing it to the hilt just to survive in between that time. Some people are still waiting, like four years later. It feels like being a fighter pilot, just constantly battling on the edge.”
This level of institutional instability shifts filmmaking from an artistic enterprise to a prolonged state of crisis management, making it nearly impossible for practitioners to safeguard their financial or psychological well-being.
Moving Toward Creative Safeguards
Just as the global industry has recognized the absolute necessity of intimacy coordinators to protect performers during vulnerable sequences, Rickards argues that the next urgent evolution must centre on holistic psychological safety for the entire crew. Having spent years absorbing heavy, traumatic real-world narratives for films like Tess, she understands that the material itself can leave a lasting imprint on the filmmaker.
“You get exposed to a lot of heavy material. If I were to write another text, I’ve thought about focusing on mental health for filmmakers and crew. If you do have that vocational call, how do you keep your physical and mental health intact? You have to learn to build a really, really tough skin, learn to take ‘no,’ and learn when to say ‘no.’ You get a lot of bangs and knocks along the way.”
Ultimately, the longevity of the South African film industry relies on reforming its culture from the ground up. To ensure that the next generation of storytellers can survive the reality of the craft, the industry must look beyond the aesthetics of the frame and actively protect the human collateral driving the engine.