Short Film Contest Review

A review of the NFVF's women helmers and indegenous language short film contest winners

Background

Over 300 entries were received by the NFVF, which whittled them down to 16 for development with the intention that the 8 best of these films would go into production. These 8 films would then constitute a calling card for the successful filmmakers to the industry demonstrating their ability to tell cinematic stories in unique and interesting ways and open the door to their entry into feature film writing and directing.

For reasons yet to be fathomed almost all those eligible to enter the contest – filmmakers with documentary or television drama writing or directing experience- failed to make the final 16. Their scripts were not good enough on a variety of fronts as if the opportunity offered by the contest in furtherance of their careers was not really understood. The result was that the majority of the 16 were first time filmmakers with a passion for story telling.

As a consequence of this the NFVF had to set up a variety of workshops to equip these finalists with the tools to write a successful short film script and then direct it. This unexpected turn meant that resources had to be diverted over the following eighteen months to teach the principles of writing short stories for the screen, directing actors and directing the camera.

At the end of the writing workshop, 8 projects were shortlisted for further development. When the final scripts were delivered, only 4 were considered good enough by the NFVF to go into production. Unfortunately, one of the filmmakers who had previously directed a feature film refused to attend the directing workshops and dropped out, leaving only three films.

Once the workshop process had been completed, the NFVF sent out a closed tender for the production of these shorts. In early 2009 Anamazing Workshop won this tender and saw it as a great opportunity to develop their live action skills. But this ended in disaster, which is now the subject of litigation.

Two of the films had to be taken over by the young filmmakers to complete, which forced the NFVF to commission DV8 to produce the 3rd. Below follows a review of the completed works which have screened at the Durban International and the Tri-Continents Film Festivals in 2009.

REVIEW by Don Mattera

Father Christmas Doesn't Come Here

13.57 min

Writers: Bongi Ndaba and Sibongile Skosana

Director: Bheki Sibiya

I love what the innovative DV8 film team is producing these days. I'm still drooling over the magical 'Izulu Lami (My Secret Sky), which won wide national applause for its exhilarating story of the coming of age, and the rites of passage of two farm bumpkins in a city seething with kind and cruel people.

We have yet again been blessed with nearly the same magic by the likes of uBheki Sibiya, Sibongile Nkosana, Bongi Ndaba, who have presented us with a polished gem in the art of short story telling. It is not often that a ten or twelve-page dialogue script can be transformed into a stirring dramatization of the human imagination.

The producers had the right ingredients yet again: a querulously talented child actress Jabulile Sithole as Siphokazi - brimming with fanciful dreams of emulating her late, long-wig-haired beauty queen mother - under the chastisement of a fastidious, fretting grandma; an abrupt shopkeeper and his kind and understanding wife who all fill her space.

I want to nit-pick around the strap-line and the dictum of this wonderful short film – which says, that the quest for beauty, comes with pain. In my opinion, it does not appropriately nor culturally fit the narrative, especially when uttered by the child's grandmother Gogo Lilian, played by Thembi Sithole.

That said I was emotionally drawn to the child's formidable interpretation of the script as well as her fine dramatization of her role as an obstreperous young lady, determined to have her way despite of the refusal by some adults to share in her yen for long, sleek hair for Christmas. It was indeed a most poignant portrayal of child-acting in the mould of the DV8 reputation in the selection of characters. Credit should also go to the director for choosing to work with this child and guiding her through this spellbinding performance.

The one scene where Siphokazi stands her ground and vehemently stomps her feet, shaking her body and arguing her case against the cutting of her hair - is not the kind of acting that someone could have taught her; it was the essence of natural talent which has become a reputable hallmark of DV8’s excellence in South African film production. The camera was sensitive and strong especially during the excruciating close-up hair-combing scenes which caused one to empathize with the ordeal and the agony of the young victim.

"People will love me when I have long hair," is Siphokazi's strong remark. Long hair will make her beautiful and one day someone will come to marry her, and she will have a good life. "Precociousness, girl-child, is thy name", the Bard might have remarked had he been around and had he understood the beauty of the Zulu language.

The letter, like most fancies of flight, never reaches Father Christmas; instead it ends amid the dust and bramble-bush of reality; warning us that dreaming is not always free; and that beauty - as the shopkeeper's wife (Slindile Nodangala) and her grandmother finally tell her - lies within; inside that place where intruders cannot reach or touch or change the journey of the young heart. And again, for this critic, the moral and objective of this telling short film, chides us to be careful of the kinds of values, norms and ethics and cultural traditions, that we impose on children, teenagers and the youth.

Good stuff, DV8 and underscored by the responsive support of the good guys at the National Film and Video Foundation. What about sub-titles in Afrikaans and our other indigenous languages for a change - transcending linguistic barriers and cultivating new generations of movie-goers?

Father Christmas has been accepted into Rotterdam.

Superhero

15min

Writer: Hanneke Schutte

Director: Hanneke Schutte

A young, schoolboy stumbles upon a limping and visibly-shaken Superhero – complete with an outer-space cape, boots and costume with a huge letter P emblazoned on the chest - in one of many mine deserted dumps, somewhere in the City of Gold. The hero's cry for help draws the 11-year-old boy closer to the man from a place of his dreams where the good guys win against the baddies.

The saga of the Superhero and the innocence of childhood blend in a lesson of forgiveness and conciliation that will warm the cockles of even the sturdiest heart. How the pain and anger of an aggrieved young man against his tormentor (the Superhero) is set aside rather than shatter the faith of his kid brother in the hero from another galaxy; a hero who fell face first onto a mine dump in Jozi.

Writer and director, Hanneke Shulte and her collective: Willie Nel (Director of photography); editor (Karyn Bosch) and music by (Trevor Sacks and Jonathan Beggs) have produced a touching short film that boasts a simple storyline of hurt and forgiving without the blare and fanfare of public cries for vengeance.

It is a warm tale of a limping hero crying out for help and the compassion and caring of a young schoolboy that comes to his aid and unconsciously becomes the catalyst for human contrition, healing and hopefully, for transformation. There is excellent acting from the trio who anchor this lovely drama: Justin Strydom (the Superhero); Johannes de Bruyn (schoolboy Lebo) and his stern and stony-eyed elder brother, (Loyiso Gxwala).

Superhero is the kind of quiet and unassuming gesture that may help to heal hearts that still fear the poultice and balms of contrition and forgiveness. It is indeed a fitting award-winning effort.

If You Only Knew

11.57min

Writers: Lev David and Clare Cassidy

Directors: Lev David and Clare Cassidy

This film is not my piece of cake and perhaps that may have to do with my personal taste, age and culture. It may also have to do with the plethora of romantic comedies which have dominated our screens this past year, most of which have been forgettable.

If You Only Knew is a frazzled depiction of some sort of a troubadour swain and his overwhelming displays of affection for a hesitant live-in woman of his dreams. She wants to leave him, inspired by a self help CD about doing the hard thing but he wants to marry her not understanding how cloying and oppressive his love for her is.

The storyline is confusing, especially because of the barely audible responses of uncertain damsel, Priya (Nicky Naidoo) facing the dilemma of "being loved too much or of not being loved at all." The stricken, coercive and overbearing lover Rob, is played by (Louw Venter) with bit parts by Deanna Levy, the stick lady and her toilet paper dragging hubby, Adam Osrin.

The conversion to the Hindu faith by the amorous troubadour – replete with the woman's parents also goading their daughter to accept the wedding advances of the singing swain were unconvincing, to put it mildly. Perhaps the film was just a spoof on the tale of girl meets boy drama. I didn't really get it.

What else could it have been?

But as they say in the business, not everything in the short movie is bad but I had trouble finding any real good stuff.