Welcome to Sollywood
Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood (2005)
Sollywood… doesn’t sound quite right does it? To be fair, Nollywood doesn’t sound quite right either though most people in the industry have now come to accept Nollywood as the catch-all term synonymous with Nigeria’s mantle as being the world’s 3rd largest film industry after Hollywood and Bollywood.
And yet South African cinema can lay claim to several landmark achievements in the film industry despite its apparent lack (or indeed need) of branding.
Charlize Theron starred as the serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003). For this role, Theron (who also co-produced the film) won the Oscar for Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004 (she is the first African to win an Oscar), as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe Award. 2003 was also the year which marked the passing, in death, of Lionel Ngakane, one of South Africa’s most prominent filmmakers. In 1950 Ngakane began his career in film as an assistant director and actor in the original film version of Cry, the Beloved Country. Shortly thereafter he went into exile in the UK where he remained until returning back to South Africa after the end of apartheid in 1994. Ngakane is best remembered for his award-winning short film Jemima and Johnny (1965), inspired by riots in Notting Hill. Lionel Ngakane also directed documentaries on apartheid and African development, and was later elected honorary president of the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers (Jemima and Johnny now sits pride of place in the BFI archive). In 2003 Ngakane was awarded the South African Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for his outstanding achievement in the field of movie-making and for his contribution to the development of the film industry in South Africa and on the continent.
In 2004, the feature film Critical Assignment – produced by beer brand Guinness and shot in five African countries (including South Africa) with only local actors and crew, went on to be a global commercial success. Critical Assignment opened the New York African Film Festival at the Lincoln Centre, it also won the Jury Prize for Best Feature Film at The Hollywood Black Film Festival in 2004.
It wasn’t long before South African cinema had even more to brag about as the urban slum drama Tsotsi picked up the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
It’s all been rather quiet since then…
District 9, directed by Neill Bloomkamp (2009)
Cue 2009 and 2010 where we can witness a re-emergence of South African cinema. First with District 9, described by British filmmaker Noel Clarke as an ‘event movie’. District 9 – written and directed by South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, was released in South Africa in 2009 and grossed five times more in revenue than the award-winning Tsotsi, and with much less exposure.
The title and premise of District 9 were inspired by events that took place in District Six, Cape Town during the apartheid era. The plot centres around an Afrikaner bureaucrat assigned to relocate a race of extraterrestrial creatures unexpectedly stranded on Earth, derogatorily referred to as “prawns”, from District 9, a military-guarded slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, to an internment camp outside the city. District 9 was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2010. Reports claim that the Nigerian government was deeply offended by the film because of its negative depiction of the Nigerian characters as criminals and cannibals. Letters of complaint were sent to the producer and distributor of the film demanding an apology. The film was later banned in Nigeria.
Life Above All, directed by Oliver Schmitz (2010)
Invictus was released in December 2009 and nominated for two Academy Awards in 2010. Invictus is a drama based on events surrounding the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted in South Africa following the dismantling of apartheid. Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film stars Morgan Freeman as South African president Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as François Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks, the South African rugby union team. Even though the film is not technically South African, it marked a renewed interest in stories coming from this part of the world.
Today South Africa is hosting the Football World Cup. And whilst Africa basks in the glory of hosting this high profile event for the first time, one cannot help but think about the issues that plague the continent, such as the ravages caused by AIDS, endemic across South Africa and vividly told in Life Above All, a feature film by South African director Oliver Schmitz and which was one of the surprise hits of this year’s Cannes film festival.
© Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe, chairman and founder of the British Urban Film Festival, 3, 4 and 5 September 2010 in London. More info
