South Africa is close to signing a film co-production treaty with Brazil and there is talk of one with Argentina. But some film-makers aren't waiting to be invited to work on the African continent, writes Theresa Smith
This year the film component of the National Arts Festival is showcasing South American films.
Film-makers Pablo César (Argentina) and Alvaro Brechner (Uruguay) took part in a discussion about making films on the southern continents with NAF film programme director, Trevor Steele Taylor.
Cesar has made five films across Africa, with his latest, The Gods of Water, being a co-production between Angola and Argentina.
It follows an Argentinean anthropologist travelling to Africa in search of the possible origins of mankind, specifically concentrating on the Dogon people’s knowledge of the stars.
César explained that getting either the local government, or an influential private person on his side first was key to making films in places like Mali, Angola, Tunisia, Morocco and the Cape Verde Islands.
“It is important to try and create a link between South America and Africa. We think that the money is in the North, and they are excellent for that, but the money does exist here too,” said César.
When he first wanted to make Equinox, the Garden of the Roses(1991) in Tunisia, the Argentine National Film Board did not approve, wanting him to rather shoot back home and import the African actors if he really had to.
“Now it’s about how we can be more united. The Institute sees making film as a way to link the continents and help us get to know each other. The films can show jealousy, love, dreams, there is no difference, people have the same feelings,” explained Cesar.
Gods of Water, shot in Angola, proved to be a costly production because of the distances travelled, hauling around baggage including 500kg of camera equipment: “We went to different places in rural areas where tourists don’t go,” said Cesar, adding, “Ethiopia is not as costly”.
His next trip will be to Namibia to shoot a sequel to The Gods of Water, titled The Hidden Sky. While a percentage of the Argentinean box office is ring-fenced to be used by their Film Institute to fund local productions – leading to up to 200 local film productions in a year – the Uruguayans have a very different experience.
Alvaro Brechner explained that the Uruguayan population is so small their entire annual box office would equal one weekend in Hollywood.
Uruguayan film-makers make up to six feature films plus six local documentaries in a year, but cannot expect to recoup their losses on the local circuit and hence don’t try to aim at a specific market: “We are so small, we don’t have an audience. We who make films try to be honest. It has to be about something that really must be expressed,” said Brechner.
He now lives and works out of Spain, but as he puts it, “everything about art tells you something about the artist. Cinema is very transnational, it talks about human beings”.
This is why he loves film festivals, because it is how he can get his work out to audiences. Both his films did the festival circuit and his second has been playing for almost 20 weeks in Brazil.