When you’re a 21-year-old filmmaker with an audience of over a million, there’s no reason to be scared of the dark, writes Alex Dodd
There’s not a hint of jadedness to be whiffed in the corridors of the South African School of Film, Television and Dramatic Art. When you talk about the new wave in South African film around here, it’s not obligatory to grunt or roll your eyes in a gesture of world-weary cachet. That’s because these kids believe they are the new wave. They’re the young Jean Luc Godards of Nineties Johannesburg and to them this city holds all the untapped celluloid mysteries of Paris in the Sixties.
On a Sunday afternoon, while the rest of the city sleeps off its sins, the renovated factory space is fused with an air of great productivity. Young babes in skimpy bikinis lol beneath harsh lights getting made up for the next take. Chords and cables abound and everyone seems to be wearing a funky auteur- style cap. Try setting up an appointment with one of the school’s producers via cellphone and you start feeling like a hound from some trashy tabloid trying to secure a one-on-one with Marty Scorcese.
However, it would be wrong to mistake this confidence and drive for arrogance. This is the unabashed ballsiness that a fresh creative vanguard demands. And these kids have every reason to be confident. Based on the success of last year’s three short films, M-Net has a signed six-film contract with the school for three films to be produced this year and another three next year. The pay channel has given the school a two-hour screening slot for the three films (along with two music videos and a behind the scenes documentary on the making of the three films) and agreed to run the package 10 times on M-Net and on DSTV.
That means the students’ works will be reaching every country in Africa – or certainly the 49 countries to which M-Net broadcasts. A potential viewership of around 1,8-million is not bad for a 21- year-old film-maker.
This year the students have made three music videos for the Indie Explosion music label as well as two others, and three of them have been on Channel O’s top 10. Their recent music video for the Cape Town kwaito group Dantai was the first South African hit to be screened on Studio Mix.
Last year’s three films were chosen to represent South Africa at the Tunisian Film Festival. Shooting Pinks (white boys get into big trouble scoring drugs in the township) was chosen among 10 other films for the video category and Red Meat (twisted avant garde blood fest) and First Heart (white girl meets black girl on Transkei road trip) are being screened in the film category (although not in the official competition).
What’s more, to the envy of many established film-makers desperately hunting down funds, next year the students will be injecting their talents into a full length feature.
No wonder they’re smiling down here in Milpark. With more teachers like Garth Holmes and Bata Passchier, there would be far more Polanskis on the loose. Holmes handles the design and producing aspects at the college and Passchier (currently lending a Marlon Brando kind of flair to the part of the guru in Rolling Stoned) is in charge of directing, editing and cinematography. These guys are the kind of firebrand teachers you thought were limited to big screen epics like the Dead Poets Society. They have a knack for making their students feel big and important.
Says third year producer Darren Gordon: “I went to the Slamdance Film Festival (Park City, Utah – in direct competition with Sundance) last year … and ended up screening two out of the three films there. People were so interested that there was an emerging film market coming out of Johannesburg, South Africa. I mean people didn’t even know we had cameras here. We’re trying to get our films shown all over the world.
“Last year was a huge learning curve for all of us. We were thrown absolutely in the deep end and learned so much. This year the three films are completely different in genre. Last year, in each one of the films someone had to die. This year there are only a few deaths. We tried to go more for the comical human drama side,” says Gordon with the sharp- talking fluency of a Coen brother doing lunch on Hollywood Boulevard. Although last year’s films were fresh and impressive in terms of their cinematography and the inventiveness of their general aesthetic, on the script front they tended either to replicate tired new South African themes or to smack of undergrad precociousness.
Perceiving this weakness, the students this year set up intensive workshops to work on ideas and scripting. By the sound of things they’ve paid off. Take for example the whacky little tale that Gordon is producing. Currently in the making, it’s called Rolling Stoned – and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this is the title of a drug movie. “What started off as a dagga movie has ended up as a bit of a love story also,” enthuses Gordon. “It starts off in London, England. We see that a large number of pounds buys you a little bit of weed. Split screen with New York City, USA where we see that a large amount of dollars buys you one little head. Split screen: Johannesburg, South Africa. Dude drives into a snack shop, throws a few coins in an oke’s hand and gets a packet full of weed.”
Just listening to the narrative is enough to make you feel stoned and giggly, but suffice to say it involves three madcap buddies, a national dagga deficit, an impromptu road trip (thankfully not to the Karoo) and a mental institution run by a crazed John McEnroe-worshipping guru … all culminating in the most lateral game show in history. Eat your heart out Johhny Depp – at last our very own homegrown slice of fear and loathing in Johannesburg. No longer will we be forced to identify with Cheech and Chong.
The film also features a totally South African soundtrack which promises to have a “very funky trip hop feel”. “Last year on Shooting Pinks we had Squeal and Sugardrive. This year we can use any of Sugardrive’s stuff and we’re also looking at the Original Evergreen. Also Michael Tellinger from Nebula Boss has given us permission to use whichever bands we want …”
Gordon is on a roll: “M-Net has given us a budget which covers our film stock, our processing and our production design, which gets us going. Everything else is sponsored. It’s the producer’s job to go out and get everything to make the actual movie happen. For example, on Rolling Stoned I’ve got Rizla sponsoring us. I’ve got about 10 000 joint’s worth. To market the movie we’re going get Rizla wrappers and stamp Rolling Stoned inside the wrapper with the screening date. We even thought of making pre-rolled joints with Rolling Stoned printed on them.”
Like Rolling Stoned, Skidmarks is being shot on 35mm. Says writer/director Guy Raphaely: “I’m a big fan of 1950s and 1960s technicolour musicals and have always wanted to do a musical.” With characters breaking out into soppy, emotional lip- synched songs at the most unexpected of moments, Skidmarks is going as camp and self-consciously over the top. Partly shot at Investment Cars in Randburg (with no shortage of beautiful girls in red and yellow bikinis) Raphaely describes his film as being about “characters with lost moments, characters who have always tried to be something but never achieved it”.
But is there anything particularly South African about the film? Not that one has to use the Protea logo throughout, but couldn’t someone mistake this film for American? “A lot of film in South Africa has been very theatrical, using actors who’ve only been trained to be on stage in the theatre, so there’s a certain film magic that’s missing. What we’re trying to do with this one is create a different kind of South Africa where your kugel from the north’s got a slight British accent and the car thief, Whacko, has got a slight twang to his, so nothing sounds quite right.
“I’ve also tried to incorporate all kinds of different nationalities. There’s a scene in the laundromat. Stacey’s been slapped in the eye and she’s watching the reflection of herself in the washing machine. Whacko’s trying to get a Coke out of the machine and they start having a fight. There’s this old woman sitting knitting and watching them interact, and she interrupts them and, in Mandarin, says: `A woman is like a flower. Hold her, touch her. She needs warmth. She needs the sun.’ The next thing this woman transforms into a geisha and starts singing them a Mandarin song about love and jealousy as she floats towards them …” Well, it sure sounds like a far cry from Paljas.
The third film, Home Sweet Home, still to be shot on Super-16, is the only one that attempts to take on socio-political reality with any seriousness. In this film, explains producer Lineo Sekeloane, a young woman returns home to South Africa post- 1994. “She comes back with this dream that South Africa is a better place and black people are free and they have jobs … Her father was in the MK and is now a corrupt policeman and her brother is a member of a gang. Her friend is dead …”
Hardly the African renaissance Thabo Mbeki has in mind, and hardly light entertainment either. But from a McEnroe worshipping guru in the Free State, to sing-alongs in car showrooms to deals between corrupt policemen, the mix sounds good. Personally I’m looking forward to the M-Net showcase about as much as I’m looking forward to Star Wars. The alien allure maybe even diminishes when there’s the chance of a whole new frontier right here.
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