Phillip Brooks in Cannes
ON its 50th birthday, Cannes kept up its twin-faced reputation – an explosive mixture of intense vulgarity and creativity. Not as disorganised as Venice nor as authoritarian as Berlin, Cannes remains the world’s top film festival.
So it was a landmark for South African cinema when, for the first time, there was an official presence. And certainly, the South African contingent made itself heard the length of the Croisette. Deputy Arts Minister Bridget Mabandla fulfilled her role as a streetwise sales person out there “to zero in on film as part of the cultural industry”. The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology sponsored Fools and Jump the Gun, both of which played to enthusiastic buyers.
Head of film at the Department of Arts and Culture Neville Singh says the key success of Cannes was “being able to see the major film commissions in the world and develop partnerships for the future”.
The official South African presence was also an umbrella for the entire Southern African film-making community. “We do have a responsibility to the rest of Africa but we know that with our limited resources we must prioritise South African film-makers,” says Singh.
In the official selections there were five films representing Africa. Present in the main competition was Idrissa Ouedraogo’s rural saga Kini and Adams.
He worked with a cast of leading South African actors – Vusi Kunene, David Mohloki, Nthati Moshesh and John Kani. Ouedraogo tells the tale of two subsistence farmers who try to piece together an automobile so that they can make it to the big city and live the better life.
Producer Cedomir Kolar expects good box office in South Africa where UIP wants to release it. He fears that he has fallen into a long love affair with South Africa and is already preparing Ouedraogo’s new film, an African historical epic, to be shot in South Africa.
Another African offering is Dakan, by 38- year-old Guinean Mohammed Camara. Giving a glimpse of an altogether undiscovered aspect of Africa, the film homes in on a strict taboo – homosexuality. A simple story of how two men fall in love, it takes place in the town of Conakry, in Guinea.
Shot at times in a highly theatrical way, it is the first African film to pose this question.
Despite the Cannes hype, time warp and a false energy capsule, Cannes brings home a bit of hard-edged reality. When it comes down to it, this famous new dawn of African cinema can only be about, as Neville Singh says, “developing a slate of projects and starting to make films and get good scripts”.
With this in mind, Dezi Rorich and John Stodel of the South African Film Market are planning to start a screen- writing class in Cape Town this year. These and other plans should make for an even more promising Cannes 1998.