Q&A: Nicky newman
Matthew Krouse
Johannesburg comes under fire in The Architecture of Fear, a frightening documentary expounding every city-dwellers worst fears. Unwittingly, it’s a dark comedy of paranoia.
Well-known individuals, such as photographer David Goldblatt and confidence coach Mike Lipkin, as well as a host of suburban reprobates reflect on the way Jo’burg fortifies itself against evil. The documentary is produced by Nicky Newman and directed by Newman with Nicole Turner. There are also original musical compositions by Phillip Miller and Blk Sonshine’s Neo Munyanga.
Your documentary makes Jo’burg look like a really terrible place. Do you have nothing positive to say about the place?
I have a lot of positive things to say but that’s another movie. We thought, for this project that the relentlessness was the point. The positive things didn’t necessarily find a space in the film. I love Johannesburg. I’m doing another movie on Jo’burg and it’s very much about the upside.
Was it your intention to make a horror movie?
Not as such. We didn’t go out and look for people with horror stories. We just went and spoke to a whole bunch of people and what came out just came out. It turned out that 95% of the people we spoke to had their own horror stories to tell. But we thought we would load it on because that was our experience of the city.
Do you think this is more the experience of women? Is this a conscious attempt to make a women’s documentary?
Not at all there’s only two or three quotes about the rape issue and we leave it alone. But I think that some of the fear women have is on a different level to what men have. So we thought we’d let that speak for itself.
Do you think what you’ve shown is exclusive to Johannesburg, or do you think you could have made the same documentary about any city in the world?
I’m sure there are cities in the rest of the world like Sao Paulo that do have fortification and gated communities, but I’ve lived here for the past six years and I’ve kind of lost touch with everywhere else. David Goldblatt said in cities in the United States you wouldn’t even have a fence but you have emotional boundaries.
You live in Yeoville. Do you sometimes feel like the last white woman in Yeoville?
No. What’s happening is that the old crew who used to be here be they black or white aren’t necessarily shopping here or banking or jolling here. I’ll meet somebody who’s been living in Yeoville for four years and I wouldn’t have bumped into them in Yeoville because I don’t get out that much.
As a resident of Yeoville your documentary doesn’t have wonderful things to say about your own suburb.
Well, it’s a rough place. I think there are pockets of people trying to get a grip on things. But there’s such a huge flow of people moving through it’s quite difficult for a community as such. You’ve got little pockets of people meeting and trying to get things together. But it’s factionalised.
How was the documentary made?
It was all done on small digital cameras. I call it guerrilla filmmaking it wasn’t huge crews with soundmen and lights. It was small, quick, on the move pulling into people’s homes, interviewing and moving on. We really covered a vast amount of shit we wouldn’t have been able to had it not been the digital format that allowed for a lot more leeway and a lot more space. I think a lot more young people are going to go that way.
The details
The Architecture of Fear airs on August 19 on SABC 3 at 9.30pm
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