M&G cinema critic and film-maker Andrew Worsdale left South Africa in 1988, despairing of our film and TV industry. But he returned to find a whole new scene developing
Eight years ago I was in the final rounds of pre-production on a feature film called Durban Poison, a sex, drugs and rock’n’roll road movie about a serial killer-type couple. The script was conceived before Silence of the Lambs, Kalifornia or Natural Born Killers. even Tarantino was still slugging it out as an assistant at a video store in Hermosa Beach.
Durban Poison had been cast and crewed, locations had been chosen, the picture had been completely story-boarded and the script was broken down into a six-week shooting schedule. I was to direct it.
Only two years previously South Africa had been producing up to 88 films a year, although they were of the schlockmeister American Ninja variety. Business was booming — mainly due to the much-abused tax shelter scheme.
But this was 1988, the year the feature film industry nearly died, and so within a week of starting production on Durban Poison the investors we had lined up pulled out, preferring to invest in timber and sugar instead.
I was devastated and left South Africa as soon as I could. I stayed in Europe for five years, dabbling in documentaries for British and French television, developing screenplays, subbing TV columns for The Guardian and The Sun and, through pub culture, learning to drink to excess.
Meanwhile, my contemporaries back home had started making political documentaries. companies like VNS, Free Filmmakers and Mail & Guardian Television produced some of the most definitive television films about apartheid and South African history.
I came home in 1993 and found a film industry trying hard to thrive under a new order, but the first real signs of dynamic change really only began to emerge this year. The most notable step forward was the much criticised re-structuring of the SABC and the introduction by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) of local quotas in programming.
The aim of the IBA is to attain up to 60% local content, with a minimum of 30% on any channel. The corporation held its first conference for independent and in-house producers and directors in September. According to Melanie Chait, head of programming policy and co-productions, it represented the SABC’s “first real move towards taking independents seriously, and trying to create a dynamic relationship with them.”
That’s partially true, even if some film-makers I spoke to felt the event was another case of big brother talking. With the SABC facing a projected R77m deficit in the current financial year the prospect of them funding locally-produced movies or TV series looks pretty bleak.
Instead, the SABC will concentrate on smaller one-off dramas and on nurturing previously disadvantaged talent. One thing I can’t fathom is why it hasn’t stumped up for some movies of the week, a concept of “television working with cinema” that has propelled the British industry back into top form. Perhaps the stubborn arrogance of the corporation is one thing that has not changed.
Although the critically lambasted series Homeland was co-produced with UK-based distributors Primetime, and the SABC’s documentary and sit-com commissioning record has been constructive and daring, movies still struggle to find finance.
There is a perception that feature films cost too much money. But really, how many territories can Generations play in? Feature film-making demands a leap of faith that’s not required for crap TV shows.
United States movies make up 92% of South African box office revenue, and as a major buyer of generic US products M-Net seems to have matured its attitude to the production of local feature films. This year it has invested in three feature films: Katinka Heyns’s rural Afrikaans drama Paljas, Bernard Joffa’s racial love story Women of Colour and Ramedan Suleman’s Fools.
In addition, M-Net’s New Directions series is being re-structured. The short film competition will become a bi-annual event and the cable channel will produce two feature films every other year. Producer Richard Green was quoted in the trade publication Africa Film & TV as saying: “The decision to mature the project and invest in feature film production is in step with the international trend to further develop the talent of those who have created for the short film genre.”
Short films have enjoyed a mini-boom this year. Cape Town-based producers and distributors Big World, in conjunction with SABC, came up with a series of four short (from 27 minutes to an hour) films. Catalyst Films, one of the busiest production companies in the country, produced six half-hour films under the theme Africa Dreaming. With the SABC, to its credit, as a co-producer, we’ll probably see them on the box next year.
The company is also producing a series of nine 11-minute films as part of a three-year programme to develop new talent. Channel Four, the SABC, US producer/distributor Miramax, Kodak and Ster-Kinekor are participating.
Catalyst was also co-producer of this year’s Jump The Gun, Les Blair’s improvisatory multi-narrative take on Johannesburg as the new Babylon. This film took the lion’s share of the M-Net All Africa Film Awards and showed local directors and actors that South African performances can be real, affecting and gritty.
Other features concluded this year were Darrell Roodt’s US-financed Dangerous Ground (previously known as The Spear) with Ice Cube as a returning exile who discovers the reality of Nigerian drug cartels. The picture may be criticised for relying too heavily on overseas stars to garner its budget; but I say Est’e Lauder’s Liz Hurley playing poor white trash in a film designed for inner-city American movie theatres is an inspired piece of casting.
It seems, though, that the old rule still stands of never getting overseas bucks with out marquee-names, no matter how tacky. Apart from Panic Mechanic, that is, Leon Schuster’s latest exercise in vulgarity and cheap affirmative action jokes. It was the only feature film made by Toron, the biggest production and facility house in the country.
Most of the other pictures made here this year were foreign-financed. Exploitation producer Nu World lead the pack with three films: Critical Move, Merchant of Death and Shadow Tracer IV — all destined for the video shelf.
US cable companies HBO and Showtime produced the prison drama Inside and One Man, One Vote with Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine imitating Mandela and De Klerk. British television spent a lot of money here producing a television mini-series. But locally produced, written and directed feature films were as thin on the ground as “before”.
That may all change with the intervention of the Department of Arts, Science, Culture and Technology, whose long-term aim is to set up a statutory National Film and Video Foundation, along the lines of state-backed film financing bodies in Australia, Canada and Ireland.
In the short term they have made R10-million available for the development of the local industry. But they’re lagging behind, having only recently set up an interim film fund to administer the money that has to be spent by March next year. And, much to the annoyance of local film-makers, there are no official application procedures. Evidently one simply submits a proposal and the interim committee — which includes Anant Singh, Jeremy Nathan, David Wicht, Melanie Chait and Lionel Ngakane — will advise the department on how to spend the money.
Many local directors and producers are sharply critical of the lack of clear administrative principles but, as Anant Singh said earlier this week: “The bottom line is that there are lots of sceptics around. But we’re moving into new ground and at last the government is supporting the idea of a revitalised film industry.”
As Brigitte Mabandla, Deputy minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology stated in an address at last month’s film and TV market in Cape Town: “We believe that film is one of the most powerful outlets for the expression of South African culture and creativity … We are equally confident that the creativity that has been stifled by the unworkable subsidy scheme of the past will be freed to create and shape images that will adorn South African and international screens …”
This is all a little corny, but then no one ever made a movie by being cynical. Next year may prove to be the one that kick-starts the industry. This time I’m sticking around to be part of it.