Charl Blignaut
SOUTH AFRICAN music videos have once again emerged in competition as the cream of the crop in Africa.
Six of the nine videos nominated for the R57 000 Best Music Video/Clip from Africa prize (Francophone countries excluded as they have their own award) at the highly influential annual Cannes Midem awards, hail from South Africa.
And of those six, Devereux-Harris and Associates, a Johannesburg film production house headed by Pam Devereux-Harris, has scooped three of the nominations.
These are: Lucky Dube’s I Want to Know What Love Is (directed by Kevin Yates); Woza Afrika’s Buthetebele (directed by Lisa Brittan) and Tu Nokwe’s Nyaka Nyaka (directed by Ivan Leathers).
In 1993 Devereux-Harris and Associates also won the Cannes Midem Best International Music Documentary Award with a film tracing the history of South African resistance pop, We’ve Got the Power, directed by Brittan. It was one of the more talked-about awards that year as it beat the acclaimed U2 Zoo Tour documentary to the prize.
Contacted this week, Devereux-Harris said, “It’s a good thing South African music videos are being shown outside the territory. Hopefully this will open doors for young film-makers.”
Other South African nominees are Mark Engels for his video of the Vicky Sampson song My African Dream; Melvin Khaoli and Life Morewane for their video of Buthi Hai Man by the new all-girl Soweto group Abo Babes and Lance Stehr for his Prophets of da City video, Understand Where I’m Coming From.
Engels has already won the 1996 Asami Best Video award and been a finalist in the 1996 Kora All Africa Music Awards for the same video.
When contacted, he said: “It stands to reason that South Africa has received so many nominations as we’re the only sub- Saharan country with fully active film and music industries.”
He added that in an industry renowned for its lack of budgets and tight work schedules, he and Devereux-Harris have steadily been targeting a highly specialised market and devoting themselves to the development of the medium.
Other nominees in the category include Zimbabwe’s Tendai Mupfurutsa with Character; Cape Verde’s Cesaria Evoria for her Petit Pays and R-Street for their song Cola Nha Terra.
Nominees in the same award for French- speaking African countries include Papa Wemba and Kofi Olomide; Ismael Lo; Youssou ‘N Dour and Meiway.
The awards will be announced at a function in Cannes, France, on January 21 1997.