The film, Happiness is a Four-Letter Word, brought out the Afro-optimist in Victor Kgomoeswana.
|||The film, Happiness is a Four-Letter Word, brought out the Afro-optimist in Victor Kgomoeswana.
Johannesburg - Who knew that my trip to The Glen shopping mall in Oakdene for the opening night of a chick flick would give the Afro-optimist in me something worth a look on the bright side of life? Aptly titled Happiness is a Four-Letter Word, the film turned out to be a bigger deal than I had thought.
It smashed several records on its opening weekend, including that for revenue grossed: R2.3 million from about 45 000 tickets sold in the first three days on the big screen. Not too shabby.
It was top of the new releases, proving that South Africans are human: they are simply looking for a hero, preferably one from among their ranks.
In the end this locally produced movie, about three woman friends trying to figure out what they want, I pondered a few pertinent points that need attention: artists are more influential than we give them credit for; second, younger storytellers among us are rewriting our narrative - and that is not the usual violence, crime, corruption storyboard; third, forget the politicians, artists make more effective ambassadors - with unmatched efficiency, too.
To deal with the first two points quickly, the Happiness movie follows the grain of two other locally produced movies in not parading our daily diet of violence and its corollaries.
These two are Tell Me Sweet Something and Ayanda, directed by Akin Omotoso and Sarah Blecher, respectively.
They also affirm the efforts of the Department of Arts and Culture to facilitate the development of the South African film industry through incentives and with the help of the National Film and Video Foundation. What a gem this foundation could be!
My observation about young South Africans rewriting our narrative doesn’t imply that they don’t want to hear about problems.
On the contrary, the #FeesMustFall campaign is but one example of how the youth not only want to hear or speak about their problems; they are acting vigorously and expeditiously to address them. In fact, they are probably fighting higher fees and unemployment so they can live large like Chris (a multimillionaire businessman in the Happiness flick).
Back to artists making better ambassadors than politicians. The producer of Happiness is a Four-Letter Word, is the unassuming but technically competent Bongiwe Selane. I interviewed her on my radio show this week, and was wowed by her grasp of the business.
With her new feature and about 10 short films to her name, Selane is out in Nigeria as we speak.
She is there to be a judge at the forthcoming Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards.
That’s more ambassadorial than our High Commissioner to Nigeria, Louis Mnguni, can be - with no disrespect to our able representative.
Selane, without any high office, without a big budget or diplomatic immunity, is out there representing South Africa.
Two of her productions are up for the Best Short Film or Online Video Award. And don’t panic; even if Selane does not win, South Africa has more than a fall-back position at the awards.
Omotoso and Blecher are in line for the Best Director award. Tell Me Sweet Something has also been nominated for sound design, and is a contender - along with Ayanda - for best movie.
How’s that for representation!
The more we make our own movies, for our market - across Africa, that is - the less we will need to cast Hollywood superstars to portray our global icons such as Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko.
The reason our directors kowtow to financiers in casting actors like Idris Elba (as Madiba) and Denzel Washington (as Biko) is that they make movies with South African themes for an American audience.
They believe their target is global, not American, but that is just how the US mentality is engineered. Instead of standing our ground, and focusing on our own market, we give in.
So when I see Bongiwe Selane fielding an all-African cast to break opening weekend box office records, before jetting off to Nigeria to represent us all, I have to pay tribute to the youth of Africa for their liberated thinking. It’s sad that we continue to allocate 0.13 percent of our national budget to tourism, which generates close to 10 percent of our gross domestic product - but that’s for another day.
It’s these overlooked gems in our economy that deserve more of our attention - and respect. A big up to our South African cultural ambassadors in Lagos! Bring those awards home next weekend!
* Victor Kgomoeswana is the author of Africa is Open for Business and anchor of Power Hour, Monday to Thursday on Power FM. He is also a weekly columnist for African Independent.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Sunday Independent