/ 25 February 2005

Sea Point days

Film and environmental politics converge at the Sea Point Pavilion as it becomes the subject of a new documentary by Francois Verster, as well as the subject of debate between developers and locals who want it to remain as it is.

The pavilion is also known as the promenade — “a place to parade”. Its walkway and the salt-water pool have become places where people from different cultures, economic groupings, generations and races mix — a rare thing in a city that is famous for how successfully apartheid divided its people.

The walkway is a Cape Town institution, but even great institutions can become history. The pavilion is up for commercial rezoning, and if development plans are implemented Sea Point Days may end up becoming a film that preserves memory.

The rezoning was opposed by former environmental affairs and tourism minister Mohammed Valli Moosa, and is currently hotly contested by the residents’ association and Democratic Alliance ward councillor, JP Smith. But local government has awarded the contract and an environmental impact assessment is planned.

Sea Point Days isn’t intended to be a lobbying tool, but of course, like any meaningful art, it can be adopted as proof of a point. Smith believes it will depict “this beleaguered community rising back to its feet”.

The residents’ association is appealing against the environmental impact assessment. They say that building more commercial premises — when there are plenty unoccupied in the main road — is pointless. They fear development will over-commercialise the area, add to traffic congestion and destroy the “community-oriented” character.

Farrell Bernberg of On Track Development, the company in line for the development contract, argues that development is progress. He says: “It is definitely not intended to be a shopping mall.”

However, On Track’s proposed developments includes redirecting the walkway through a shopping area, constructing a 30-room hotel, building underground parking and converting areas of public lawn into additional parking space.

Sea Point Days stems from Verster’s love of the pavilion, but he insists that he is not making a protest picture, just telling stories.

And there are so many to tell. Strolling the 10km from Mouille Point to Bantry Bay, one encounters families with prams, roller-skating models, joggers with dogs, God squads, t’ai chi classes, social soccer clubs, hippies, tourists, millionaires, bergies, grannies and gangsters. One catches sound bites from their lives as they pass by.

Everyone returns here come rain or shine, or come great waves that break holes in the walkway forcing a detour around what a sign claims is “the world’s second largest maze”. (Nobody can tell me what international body is responsible for evaluating the sizes of mazes, or on what basis they do it.)

But it is more than these curiosities that keep people coming back. The sun-warmed salt waters of the 50m pool is another popular attraction. Once a “whites only” facility the pool now belongs to everyone. On weekends, families from Langa, Mitchells Plain and beyond arrive early with umbrellas, blankets, cooler boxes and kids to stake out their place in the sun.

On a January Saturday, the pool is packed by 3pm. Brenda Fassie’s hit song Weekend Special blasts from Bush Radio’s “Bush Against War” campaign tent on the pavilion above. Plump, spotty teenagers hand out promotional battered and deep-fried chicken. Kids play ice-cream cone roulette: “Will this cone survive being held upside down while I hop on one leg?”

The crew from Undercurrent Films is wetsuited and underwater, filming children jumping from the diving boards into the deep water.

Sea Point Days will be a series of short encounters with characters such as the lovers who meet there, the athletes who train there, the guy who has cleaned the pool filter for decades and the grannies who live in the flats above and who can describe everyone’s daily routine, but don’t know their names.

Verster is dressed in a wetsuit, eating a caramel dip ice cream when I arrive.

Sea Point Days seems essentially different from his other recent projects. These grappled — often with humorous and tender results — with gruelling South African topics.

The multiple award-winning When the War is Over told the story of two former struggle cadres in the gang-torn township of Bonteheuwel, now living without many of the things they fought for. The next, Her Mother’s House, is in post-production. It depicts three generations of Bonteheuwel women battling in a damaged world.

Filming in places like Bonteheuwel can be exciting and worthwhile, but also dangerous. In contrast, Sea Point Days is ultimately about joy and the beautiful, perhaps temporary, dreams of summer — what Verster calls “the pursuit of happiness”.

“Nice not to be threatened with knives?” I comment. “Or do you miss that? Not really, right?”

Verster smiles. His lips still have ice cream in the corners.

Sea Point Days will be a documentary feature film. Ster-Kinekor has expressed written interest in screening it in 2006.