It’s going to be a busy year for local filmmakers
|||Theresa Smith
There are several titles on the schedule which tantalise with South African roots, but not much detail.
Sy Klink Soos Lente (September 3), Nul is Nie Niks Nie (September 30), Vir die Voëls (November 25), Jou Romeo (December 23) and Liewe Kersvader (December 15) are still in production.
Cry of Love (May 6) is done, though all we know so far is that it is a musical directed by Nigerian filmmaker Faith Isiakpere and that it stars Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Leleti Khumalo (Yesterday).
Oliver Hermanus’ The Endless River (June 17) was entered into the Venice Film Festival so all we know is that it is set in Riviersonderend and tells the story of a French expatriate (played by Nicolas Duvachelle) and a small town waitress (Crystal Donna Roberts) who form an unlikely bond after the brutal murder of his family on a farm.
Finders Keepers (June 24) is directed by Maynard Kraak and all I know is that local comedian Dalin Oliver has his first film role in it.
Then there is Girl From Nowhere which is about a Cape Town couple who pick up a hitchhiker who may or may not be the Devil. Okay, maybe that’s VOD territory, but Germany-based, South African-born Oliver Schmitz’s film, Shepherds and Butchers, has a much deeper pedigree.
Based on Chris Marnewick’s novel, the drama was filmed in South Africa and screens tomorrow at the Berlin International Film Festival. It follows a jaded lawyer played by Steve Coogan who takes on a seemingly hopeless multiple murder case and uncovers the shortcomings of the South African capital punishment system. He has to defend a prison guard traumatised by the executions he took part in.
There are also a couple of films which received press notice or some sort of online mention, but still haven’t appeared on on the release schedule, like Charlie Vundla’s Cuckold and what happened to Gerrit Schoonhoven’s Twee Grade van Moord or Gabriel Bologna’s African Gothic?