Niel Sonnekus
This year’s Standard Bank National Arts Film Festival ranges from the darkly
confrontational to the classic, with plenty of space for the experimental, the
local and the sadomasochistic in between.
Heading the festival is the work of Durban-bred film-maker Ian Kerkhof, who lived in Amsterdam from 1983 to 1999 because he didn’t “feel like running around
in an ugly brown uniform killing people”.
All his work is prefaced with a warning about its violent and sexual content.
One of his films is called Nice to Meet You, Please Don’t Rape Me and was made
in South Africa as a musical in 1995 as a response to the country’s rape statistics. In one scene a black man asks a white man to rape him. The white man
duly obliges. It did not go down well in Burkina Faso.
Another film, Wasted, deals with Amsterdam’s underground rave scene and was a
huge hit in Holland. As the publicity material says, Wasted is to ecstasy what
Easy Rider was to LSD.
Kerkhof likes using existing or found footage, often porn, and working in the
highly manipulable digital video format before dumping it to film. He wants to
“create a global network of copyright-free cinema on the Internet”. His lecture
at the festival will be called Sample at Will: There is No Copyright.
On the more sedate side, there will be films like the 1928 classic The Passion
of Joan of Arc by Denmark’s Carl Dreyer, even though that film also stars another inspired lunatic, Antonin Artaud.
Then there are such other classics as Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and The
Gospel According to St Matthew by Pier Paulo Pasolini. Casting a young Spanish
student as Christ in the lead of a film consisting only of non-actors, it is
arguably the most beautiful, angry and touching portrayal of Christ.
On the audio side there is work by acclaimed Dutch film-maker, Frank Scheffer,
who has become the “consummate interpreter and documenter of contemporary music”, ranging from John Cage through to rave DJ Spooky.
Sonic Acts also includes interpretations of music by Karlheinz Stockhausen and
avant garde rock genius Frank Zappa, who said the problem with computers is that
they don’t have eyebrows.
Those who like the Dogma style of film-making will have three works to choose
from. Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier won the Palme d’Or at last year’s
Cannes Film Festival, and The Celebration was awarded the Grand Prix du Jury at
the same festival in 1998.
On the local scene the short film festival features, among others, three works
by rising stars Dumisani Phakati and Yizo Yizo director Tebogo Mahlatsi, winner
of the Venice Silver Lion for his Portrait of a Young Man Drowning.
The “recent releases” section has a distinctly sadomasochistic edge to it with
films such as the controversial Romance, the adrenalised Doberman, the Oscar-
nominated film about the Marquis de Sade, Quills, and the masterpiece about addiction, Requiem for a Dream.
Two premieres will feature Kevin Costner and Sigourney Weaver respectively, and
both films deal with modern methods of stealing money!
Lastly, there are two action flicks for when you get tired of all the dark, meaningful stuff and just want to sit back and enjoy the poetry of the Hong Kong
action cinema with the likes of Michelle Yeoh.