Vindication and surprise at ‘Noem My Skollie’ Oscar nod

Noem My Skollie writer John W Fredericks has expressed surprise at the announcement that the film based on his life is South Africa’s official selection for the 89^th edition of the Oscars.

Speaking to the Mail & Guardian earlier this week, Fredericks (70), the writer of acclaimed documentaries such as Mr Devious and Shooting Bokkie, said: “Never in my whole life did I expect what is happening with this film. People are still coming to watch the film.”

Fredericks began working on the script in 2000 and completed a first draft  in 2002. He then showed it to the film’s eventual co-producer, David Max Brown, at film market conference Sithengi. “A lesson to all scriptwriters: always keep your script with you.”

Brown read it on his flight to Jo’burg and “when he landed he said: ‘I love your story.’ So we worked together, writing, rewriting.”

Noem My Skollie has had an arduous journey to the cinema, a trip not made any easier by Frederick’s reluctance to write it: “I didn’t want to write it but it haunted me,” he said. “I didn’t want to write it truthfully. I would write stories around it but I didn’t want to touch on the whole story.”

Fredericks says an eye-opening National Film and Video Foundation scriptwriting workshop he attended further boosted his confidence in his abilities.

Set in the Cape Flats of the 60s, Noem My Skollie tells the story of four youngsters who form a gang. Their bond is tested when two of the group’s members (including the leader AB) are arrested.

Forced to pick a side in jail, AB does his best to avoid this by turning to the art of storytelling, which hardly prepares him for the hardships he must face on his return to the outside world.

The script for Noem My Skollie was written on a typewriter that Fredericks’ dad salvaged from a dumpsite near where they lived, a storyline that is featured in the film.

Brown says the announcement is, in a sense, vindication as there were “many people along the way who said that this film wouldn’t work. John is someone who went to school for a very short period, and if you’ve seen the film, you would have seen what he’s gone through, and to deal with that trauma in a script, he is just so brave.”

Brown says, as a result of everyone giving the filmmaking process their all, Noem My Skollie emerges with a real, authentic voice and depiction of 1960s Cape coloured culture that, beyond being true to its premise, is evocative on a human level.

The film is directed by first-time feature director Daryne Joshua.