Durban FilmMart 4: FREE THE TOWN

FREE THE TOWN poster art

I recently attended the Durban FilmMart Co-Production market, which featured a diverse slate of documentary and narrative projects that are fostering collaboration between African countries and entities outside the continent. This is the fourth in a series of blogs about projects and issues related to co-productions in the South African industry.

NYU Graduate Film Alum Nikyatu Jusu participated in the Durban narrative feature market with her film Free the Town. Nikyatu went to Durban shortly after having attended Film Independent’s Fast Track program in Los Angeles.

I followed up with Nikyatu to see how things had developed since Durban, and what reflections she had about pitching her film to different industries around the world. (She and her producers have also been accepted to Independent Filmmaker Project’s Emerging Storytellers Forum, part of the IFP Film Week in September).

Nikyatu was born and raised in the U.S.; Her parents are from Sierra Leone.  Free the Town is a coming-of-age drama that explores three interconnected stories about different strata of life in Sierra Leone. Free the Town has cross-cultural elements, including an African American character. The project’s local/global narrative blend -- which I find makes it unique and relevant -- presents certain financing challenges, which Nikyatu described to me.

According to Nikyatu, many of the production companies that she met with during FastTrack in Los Angeles had difficulty placing an independent African film like hers within their (mostly mainstream American) purview.  Conversely, when meeting with European producers and grantmakers who had come to Durban to find African projects to finance, Nikyatu found that her background as a Sierra Leonian-American who grew up in the U.S. – and the African-American elements of her film – did not always fit easily into existing models of cultural and financial support for Africa filmmakers. Nikyatu’s short films have explored relationships between Africans and African-Americans, so there was some precedent – but still, she is pursuing subject matter that has not been extensively explored.

A primary goal of Global Film Connect is to find and track innovative partnerships (both creative and financial), so I was curious to hear about Nikyatu’s meetings with South African production companies. One prospect that was explored was to shoot Free the Town in South Africa, with locations there doubling as Freetown, the Leonian capital.  Filming in South Africa would allow the film to take advantage of tax incentives there and would potentially qualify it for co-production status with other countries. (Blood Diamond was shot in South Africa and Mozambique, doubled for Sierra Leone).

Nikyatu’s preference is to shoot in Freetown itself – not only for the authenticity of the filmic experience, but to help engage and support the nascent local film industry.  (Blood Diamond, by contrast, featured an American director, a Beninois star playing Sierra Leonean, and an American star playing an Afrikaner Rhodesian).

Free the Town aims to cast Sierra Leone in its vibrant present, a culture that is more rich and expansive than the stereotypes of its war-torn history. It will be interesting to see what kinds of international collaboration prove to be effective in getting this film made. This is a project worth keeping an eye on.

Durban FilmMart 3: Development(s) in Kenya

I recently attended the Durban FilmMart Co-Production market, which featured a diverse slate of documentary and narrative projects that are fostering collaboration between African countries and entities outside the continent. This is the third in a series of blogs about projects and issues related to co-productions in the South African industry. The Donkey that Carried the Cloud on Its Back, a documentary pitched at the Durban FilmMart by producer Atieno Odenyo and director Philippa Ndisi Herrmann, is about the impending construction of what will be Africa’s largest shipping port on the Island of Lamu off of Kenya. The film, previously titled We Want Development, will deal with the tension between globalizing commercial development and protection of local homes, culture and industry. Lamu Island is a historically rich center of Swahili culture and intersection with the Arab world. There are no cars; transportation there is by boat and transportation around the island is by donkey (hence the movie’s title).  Judging from the trailer shown at Durban, this film will be an artful, allegorical look at Africa’s interaction with the rest of the world. (The port contract was recently given to a Chinese company and will feature in China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy of commercial bases across the Indian Ocean).

I spoke with Atieno Odenyo about her experience at Durban and other co-production forums, about Kenyan filmmakers’ reliance on European grant money, and about some of the work being done to foster local industry in Kenya.

For Atieno and Philippa, the Durban FilmMart 2013 was a chance to continue to foster relationships formed during development of their feature film Two Princes, which took them in 2011 to both the Durban FilmMart and the Produire au Sud Co-Production workshop in Nantes. Produire au Sud brings producing/directing teams from Africa, Latin America and Asia together with European financiers.

Since European production grants have been practically the only way to finance certain kinds of projects in Kenya, there is a need for more support for producers within Africa.

The Kenyan Film Commission hosted a pavilion at Cannes this year as part of an initiative to sell that country. They also signed Memoranda of Understanding with South Africa and France.  These MoU’s are short of Co-production treaties but will allow formalized collaboration between Kenya and these two countries.

Atieno, who was part of the Kenyan delegation to Cannes, runs a Nairobi-based Production company called Mawe Moja. She underscored the need for support for Kenyan producers – since without that, the fostering of industry and crews may draw foreign productions without necessarily cultivating local voices.

As in many emerging film economies, skilled, affordable crews that can work beyond the limits of U.S. union parameters are attractive to foreign productions – but that alone doesn’t necessarily promote quality films of the kind that people in those countries want to watch.

Part of Atieno’s push for Kenyans’ ownership of their own industry is the development of that country’s first crowd-funding platform for film. Kenya was the first country in the world to widely use SMS bank transfer and donation technology, so it’s an environment well suited to such a venture.

The ‘development’ chronicled in The Donkey that Carried the Cloud on Its Back – and its questions of local voice and agency – will like run a strong parallel to the development of the Kenyan film industry. It will be interesting to see how both turn out.

Durban FilmMart 2: Production Challenges in South Africa – Content and Commerce

The Durban FilmMart’s documentary section showcased eight non-fiction African films in development. A dynamic and diverse lineup of documentarians delivered short pitches and then received feedback from representatives of South African production companies and foreign funding agencies  (including ITVS, IDFA, Hot Docs, and the Tribeca Institute). Three outstanding projects from the Talent Campus Durban were chosen to join the eight official doc forum participants and give their pitches. After the market I caught up with one of these emerging directors, South African filmmaker Maanda Ntsandeni, to talk about his film Parole Camp and some of the challenges of filmmaking in his country.

Parole Camp follows three characters in an alternatives-to-incarceration program called REALISTIC and was born of a very personal experience of Maanda’s: “I had a friend who went to jail when he was 18. He got out, and his friends - including me – turned their backs on him. The next day he committed suicide.” REALISTIC supports young people during their time immediately following their release.

According to Maanda, “it’s very difficult to finance a documentary like Parole Camp, simply because people are prejudiced against ex-inmates, for a lot of reasons -- one which may be that they want to continue seeing them punished, despite whatever time they’ve served inside. No one believed in this project from the very onset… I applied though various funds, (but) I think they just couldn’t understand what I was trying to do. Until I applied to the NFVF (National Film and Video Foundation). They took a chance.”

South Africa’s NFVF provides grants and loans to South African Filmmakers at different stages: education and training, development, production, and marketing and distribution. They also have other initiatives aimed at fostering local industry, including the Sediba Spark Scriptwriting Programs.

Maanda Ntsandeni received a development grant of US $10,000 last year, which allowed him to shoot and cut a work-in-progress and trailer that he presented at Durban. The Parole Camp trailer and pitch earned Maanda a further development grant of €2,500 from Worldview.

In addition to the challenges posed by his subject matter, Maanda contends that persistent racial prejudice and a lingering old boys’ club mentality in the South African film industry create other barriers for young black filmmakers. Among other things, black filmmakers can have a much harder time securing equipment than their white counterparts – a real obstacle for unestablished producers, since rentals in SA can be expensive and grant monies are often not allowed to be spent on equipment purchase. Furthermore, according to Maanda, there is a relative lack of creative cooperation between South Africa and other African countries – in part because the South African industry is seen by many other Africans as a European industry. (Countries in Francophone West Africa, by contrast, have a stronger tradition of cross-border collaboration and creative germination. More on potential connections between African countries to come in future blogs).

Maanda, who was mentored by veteran producer Neil Brandt, is now seeking a partnership with a U.S. Producer so that he can open a Kickstarter campaign. Winning the Worldview grant, a project of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, may open doors to other funders in the UK for this project.

Whatever route it takes, Parole Camp is a documentary with heart that is likely to find financial support and an audience.