South Africa’s film industry has exploded on to the world stage with a spate of award-winning movies in the space of a few weeks. The domestic audience, though, remains in Hollywood’s thrall.
Yesterday, the poignant tale of a woman infected with the Aids virus, narrowly missed out on an Oscar for best foreign language film. It was the first South African film to be nominated for an Oscar.
uCarmen eKhayelitsha, an exuberant adaptation of Georges Bizet’s opera set in the gritty Cape Town township of Khayelitsha and sung in Xhosa, was a surprise winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin festival. And Drum, evoking the struggle against racist rule in 1950s Johannesburg, carried off the Golden Talon, the top prize at Africa’s premier film festival in Burkina Faso.
”South Africa’s golden age of film appears to be dawning,” exclaimed a jubilant President Thabo Mbeki after Drum‘s win.
However, at the South African box office, Hollywood rules.
Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland and Aviator are among the top films currently showing at mainstream movie theaters.
There are a few Bollywood offerings. But the only African film is a locally produced comedy, Max and Mona, which opened to critical acclaim but disappointing audiences early in March.
”South African cinemas cater for 11% of the population — the whites,” complained Zola Maseko, director of Drum, in an interview with The Associated Press. ”The trick for us is to develop local talent and take cinema to black townships and the people.”
Movie complexes are typically situated in gleaming shopping malls, and ticket prices are prohibitive for many blacks.
Plans to use community centres to screen films in poor areas haven’t gotten off the ground.
Mamaramba Cinema — a converted tavern in Khayelitsha — had to close its doors this month without even screening Carmen because of insufficient funds, according to its organiser, Ryan Thwaits — this despite a rapturous welcome from the 1 000 people who crammed into the small room every month to watch low-budget films.
Director Maseko hopes that Nu Metro, one of South Africa’s biggest movie distribution companies, will find a way of screening Drum to poor blacks after its big-screen debut in April.
The film — named after the now legendary magazine and set in Sophiatown, the cultural heart of Johannesburg before it was demolished under apartheid — received standing ovations at festivals around the world. But Maseko is less sure about the reaction at home.
”Many white South Africans are in denial about the past because they played such a horrendous part in it,” he said. ”But it is not a film saying how bad and wicked they were. It’s about a great time in our people’s history. It is a human story.”
Yesterday ran for about three months last year — not bad for a film in isiZulu, according to its producer, Anant Singh. It grossed just R2,5-million at the box office, compared with an anticipated R20-million for Shall We Dance? with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez, Singh said.
The film is named after a woman who discovers she is HIV-positive and struggles to bring up her young daughter. It is set in breathtakingly beautiful but impoverished KwaZulu-Natal — the province most ravaged by the pandemic that has infected five million South Africans, more than in any other country. HBO Films has the distribution rights for the United States.
”Yesterday, uCarmen and Drum show the world that we do have a creative base that is talented and compares in the rest of the world,” said Singh.
One of South Africa’s most prolific producers, Singh is now working on a movie based on the life of former president Nelson Mandela, whose foundation helped fund Yesterday. The older Mandela will be played by Morgan Freeman, who picked up an Oscar for his role in Million Dollar Baby.
Singh hopes the blossoming film industry will be further strengthened by a new, R400-million studio that his consortium is building near Cape Town — a first for the city that has become a favorite location for international film productions because of its white sandy beaches, mountainous backdrop, gentle climate and top-class tourist infrastructure.
The film industry brings in an estimated R2-billion a year to the local economy. But the once-thriving fashion and advertising shoots are being squeezed by the strength of the rand against the dollar and euro, and the emergence of cheaper alternatives such as Argentina, according to Martin Cuff, head of the Cape Film Commission.
He is encouraged that big-budget productions such as Paramount’s Ask the Dust, with Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek, and Lord of War, with Nicholas Cage, were filmed in Cape Town. Hotel Rwanda — which won two Oscar nominations — was filmed in Johannesburg.
Cuff is confident that more will follow thanks to new tax incentives and the growing reputation of the South African film industry.
”South Africa is not just a nice service provider for foreign productions,” said Cuff. ”We have now also proved that South African films are making their mark, and it is fantastic that they are making their mark simultaneously.” — Sapa-AP