kagablog

South Africa 2008 – 81 minutes

Director/editor/Script: Aryan Kaganof
Photography: Eran Tahor
Music: Michael Blake
sound design: warrick sony
sound recordist: nico louw
Cast: Leigh Graves, Deja Bernhardt, Aryan Kaganof, Bill Curry, John Matshikiza, Samantha Rocca,Jerry Mofokeng, Norman Maake

Johannesburg – an evil, ugly city on Christmas Eve. This is the turf of the lonely and the damned and no more damned can they be than Sugar man (Kaganof) cruising the streets in his Valiant ’66, continually on his cell phone, peddling his girls, white and Asian, to wealthy black punters. This tongue in cheek inversion of the apartheid-years scenario of Afrikaans business men popping off to the “homelands” to sample black girls is delivered with ironic force. From hotel to hotel to palatial apartment, sugar man and his girls journey like Joseph and Mary looking for a manger. The process of the night will awaken something in Sugar man that will be born on Christmas Day, witnessed by no Wise Men nor sheep and cows but witnessed instead, by those who, like him, were lost.

Strangely romantic, consciously transgressive and aesthetically audacious – shot on a battery of cell phones – the film is in addition a homage to Jean Luc Godard’s Alphaville. A checkered production history, plagued by disagreements between director and producer, almost accepted for Cannes but rejected after Kaganof refused to institute alterations insisted on by the Cannes selectors, the film is destined to share the same floor as Citizen Kane and El Topo in the great Cinematheque Hotel of the Akashic Records.

trevor steele-taylor

book your tickets here: http://www.labia.co.za/current/showing.htm

first published here: http://www.dieburger.com/Vermaak/Nuus/Eerste-selfoon-rolprent-draai-in-Kaap-20120811

first published here: http://undergroundfilm.tumblr.com/page/3

Director
ARYAN KAGANOF

Writer
ARYAN KAGANOF

Writing Additions
DEJA BERNHARDT LEIGH GRAVES

Music
MICHAEL BLAKE

Director of Photography
ERAN TAHOR

Sound Designer
WARRICK SONY

Visual Effects Editor
JURGEN MEEKEL

Editor
Aryan Kaganof

Cast

Sugar Man – ARYAN KAGANOF
Grace – LEIGH GRAVES
Selene – DEJA BERNHARDT
Anna – SAMANTHA ROCCA
Scorpion – JULIUS MOELETSI
Attila – ATTILA BARNA
Crack Whore – PATRICIA BOYER
Wallet # 1 – JERRY MOFOKENG
Wallet # 1’s – Son NORMAN MAAKE
Wallet # 2 – JOHN MATSHIKIZA
Wallet # 3 – LUTHULI DLAMINI
Wallet # 4 – RYAN FORTUNE
Wallet # 5 – BILL CURRY
Jacky – ZHOUIE BERNHARDT

Production Team
Production Manager SHIREEN WILLIAMS
Production Coordinator THANDI ZWANA
Production Accountant BUYISILE KUBHEKA
Production Accountant AMELIA LEA

Camera
Director of Photography ERAN TAHOR
Consultant FRANK MYBURG
Trainee Camera Assistant THABISO MOTLHAKOANE

Technology Team
Continuity / Logger GREG VAN NIEKERK
Visual Effect Editor JURGEN MEEKEL

Sound
Sound Recorder & Boom Operator NICO LOUW
Assistant Sound Recorder SANDILE NGCOBO
Assistant Boom Operator BASIAMI SEGOLA

Sound Design, Edit and Final Mix WARRICK SONY

Cross Media Guru CHRISTY DENA

Web Master MARCEL MEYER

Behind the Scenes Director & Editor GARRETH FRADGLEY

Security MASHODAN TSENEKELA

Film Score
Music played by THE MICHAEL BLAKE ENSEMBLE
Recording, Editing & Mixing Engineer CORINNE COOPER
Music Assistant CLARE LOVEDAY

Trailer Created by Aryan Kaganof

Publicity Stills BEN CORNFORD

Production Assistant ALBERT MAPHOSHO
Production Assistant RAYMOND NKONYANE

DV8 Staff
Communications LIPHUMILE GODUKA
AGNES DITSHANTSHO
Driver PIKA MLANGENI

Legal Representation
ROSIN WRIGHT ROSENGARTEN
MARK ROSIN

Film Insurance
CGM
HANLIE CARSTENS

Auditors
S.W. FEINSTEIN AND CO

Catering PEPPER TREE CATERING

Production Vehicles U DRIVE

Sound Equipment NICO LOUW

Lighting Equipment SOUTHERN LIGHTING

Camera & Grip Equipment SONY ERICSSON
THE CAMERA PLATFORM RENTALS

Filmed with
Sony Ericsson W900i Mobile Phone
Cameras and Lenses

The Producer would like to thank the following people
Pierre Rissient, Abderrahmane Sissako, Jacques Akchoti, Doug Allan of Melrose Arch Hotel, All the staff of Melrose Arch Hotel, Sharon Gordon from Lola Montez, Capt. Jagwa from SAP, Inspector Chris Lourens from SAP, Shahn Mott from Helta Skelta, Renier Lambaard, Minah Daweti from Carwash @ Corlett, Belinda Farger, Ewan Burger from Burger Brothers, Mr. Maphalane at The Ridge Hotel, The Bohemian, Fuzigish & Fans, Armin at Lancet Laboratories, Giana

A
SMS Movies & Reflex Motion Pictures
Film
www.smssugarman.com

The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this
film are fictitious. No identification with actual persons, places,
buildings, events or products is intended or should be inferred.
Copyright: 2007
SMS Movies

SMS SUGAR MAN is a project steeped in the rich South African dramatic tradition of actor’s workshops. A strong dramatic premise is introduced to the principal cast who bring to the project their unique histories, their particular takes on the characters. In this way a character fueled narrative evolves, with each day’s improvisations and discoveries polished at night into tightly scripted situations for the next day’s work. Day by day the work-shopping evolves a continuity and tension that is impossible under usual film making conditions.

Great South African theatre voices like Gibson Kente, Athol Fugard and Barney Simon worked consistently in this way and SMS SUGAR MAN marries this rich indigenous way of crafting dramatic narrative with the evolving technology available to the feature film medium.

SMS SUGAR MAN is a feature film that incorporates new cell phone technologies in a highly innovative manner.

The film is not only actually shot on cell phone cameras, in itself a revolutionary breakthrough, but the cell phone plays a vital role in driving the film’s narrative – in effect functioning as a dramatic character.

All the lead actresses carry a cell phone and constantly film each other. Thus the traditional cinematic practice of having a “cast” who are invisibly filmed by a “crew” of technicians – is radically subverted.

In SMS SUGAR MAN cast and crew fuse – the actresses are in control of filming each other – and in monologue scenes, -themselves.

This conceptual leap mirrors the tremendous empowering effect that cell phone technology has had on our every day lives.

The plot of the film is entirely driven around the potential that cell phones have to enable us to explore new forms of communication and new ways of representing ourselves. The consequences of these innovations are hardly studied as yet, and SMS SUGAR MAN makes a contribution to our understanding of how significant cell phone technology has been on the evolution of our social development.

Cell phone media have become so much part of our daily living that it would be impossible to conceive of an urban environment without them. SMS SUGAR MAN is a prescient glimpse into the near future when all our most basic relations with each other are informed by cell phone use, including sexuality and spirituality.

SUGAR MAN is a pimp with vision. He sees himself as a service provider. His niche market is successful black businessmen and politicians who desire white women. Sugar Man regards himself as post-political, his only concern is business. However his aplomb is disturbed when his desire for his lost family surfaces, and his development is from a hard-boiled cynic, only in it for the money, into a man who realizes that love and innocence are the only redeeming forces.

SELENE is an Indonesian American woman who has been working for many years with Sugar Man. She tends to mother the group, both because of her age (she’s in her early thirties) but also as a way of masking her own insecurities and the increasing disgust that she feels with herself.

GRACE is an ethereal creature from an obviously wealthy, upper class background. Her plummy accent and slightly affected mannerisms belie the fact that she is a real sexual enthusiast, who approaches her work with dedication and glee. But her descent into hell mirrors that of Sugar Man’s, who is Grace?

ANNA is the newcomer to the group. This is her first night in the car, and forces all of them to remember the value of innocence and purity. At the end of her first night “on the game”, she decides to quit.

Deja Cresencia Bernhardt, a newcomer to this side of the camera’s lens, joins the “Sugars” all the way from Bali, Indonesia. With her experience growing up between Asia and America she adds a different ingredient to the gang. She was particularly interested in SMS Sugar Man when she first heard about the film at the Cape Town World Cinema Fest where she was interested in pitching her own film, currently in post production, “Guerilla Midwife”, a documentary filmed in Indonesia before and after the December 26th tragic Tsunami off the coast of Aceh, Sumatra.

Deja was intrigued that SMS Sugar Man was unfolding, a very sexy subject and mixing it with not only innovative camera techniques, being a cameraperson herself, but also a heartfelt, comedic story at the core and a new way of filmmaking all together. Deja’s past films that she has directed include “Ubuntu”, an award-winning story of AIDS and Orphan resolution in South Africa in 2004.

Deja and her mother Robin Lim were recently elected Asian-American of the year 2005 from the Iowa Asian-American Association for outstanding volunteer work done in Asia related to medicine and disaster recovery. She recently wrote and directed her first play performed with South-east Asian Shadow Puppets and Master Puppeteer Pak Tunjung of Bali Indonesia, which portrayed images, and stories she gathered through her documentary work done specifically in Aceh after the Tsunami.

Deja has been a long time apprentice in Midwifery with her mother and is a certified Lactation Consultant herself. Deja also served as the Asian American Caucus representative in 2004 for the U.S. Democrats in the State of Iowa where she graduated from MIU in Iowa with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

I was born and raised in Zimbabwe on Amajuba, a tobacco and game farm.
After studying in both Germany and Zimbabwe, I moved to South Africa and attended Rhodes University where I majored in Drama and TV Journalism.

I started a theatre company called Makendast in 2001, which was sponsored by the National Arts Council, and put on several productions until the end of 2003. The stories performed were inspired by the political situation in Zimbabwe as one by one my friends and family lost their farms and homes. The company also taught theatre workshops at various schools in the Western Cape, including disadvantaged community schools and started a Physical Theatre curriculum at Vus’Abantu in the township of Langa. Mime and clowning was my forte as I had trained with the legendary Andrew Buckland.

I have acted in Charlie Jade for Canada, Cavegirl for the UK, Deprogrammer for India and America, 13th Street for the UK, as well as performing in several theatre productions.

My most memorable experience was Reza De Wets “Crossing”. Recently I played a short role in The Triangle with Eric Stolz playing the lead, and then landed a role in the latest M-Net production, Known Gods. I recently moved from Cape Town to Joburg to work at Muti Films.

Born in 1984, I’m the youngest of the sugars. I’ve lived in Johannesburg all my life but have been lucky enough to enjoy travelling to many parts of the world.

My mother says that I started acting in the womb, so I guess it was no surprise when I decided to make a career out of it.

I’ve been acting in play productions since I was 10 and went on to achieve the Best Junior Actress and Best Senior Actress awards at Northcliff High School. I have also received a couple of awards from the amateur theatre group, “The Franklin Players”.

In November 2005, I completed my BA Degree in Live Performance at AFDA. It was in my last couple of days there that I was introduced to Kaganof and given the challenging role of Anna.

Jerry came from humble beginnings at Orlando West High School and Youth Alive Ministries in Soweto in the 1970s. He went into acting as a past time in community theatre during the turbulent years of the students’ unrest. Jerry graduated from Wits University majoring in drama.

During the 1990s, his career spanned from teaching at Wits, to an Associate Artistic Director at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre to the Chief Director of Mpumalanga department of Sports and Culture, and finally the Artistic Director of the State Theatre, Pretoria.

Jerry is an actor investing his varied skills in the arts – acting, directing, writing and teaching. Besides playing the “baddies” roles on television, Jerry has also portrayed other varied roles in films such as ‘Cry the Beloved Country’, ‘One Man, One Vote’, ‘Rhodes’, ‘Bones’, ‘Max and Mona’ and more recently in ‘Tsotsi’.

Norman Maake attended the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (AFDA). In addition to numerous commercials, his television credits include Cha-cha-cha (2001). His other work includes the short film Home Sweet Home (1999) and the video Miyela Africa (2001).

Soldiers of the Rock (2003) began as Maake’s fourth-year project at AFDA and, after several years in production, grew into a feature version which saw him rated as one of South Africa’s most promising young directors.

John Matshikiza was born in Johannesburg in 1954 and grew up in Lusaka and London, where he trained in drama between 1974 and 1977. While in England he worked in theatre, television and film, as an actor, director and writer. He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, among others, and on BBC, ITV and Channel 4 television channels.

He returned to South Africa in 1991 where he has directed plays at the Market and Windybrow Theatres; written and directed documentaries and dramas for television, such as the six-part documentary series “Africa Salutes Mandela,” and two episodes of the historical drama series “Saints, Sinners and Settlers”, as well as appearing in various films amongst others, ‘Wah Wah’, ‘Beyond Borders’, ‘Hijack Stories’, ‘The Air up There’ and ‘Cry Freedom’.

Matshikiza is currently an associate editor and columnist for the Mail & Guardian based in Johannesburg . His published works include South Where Her Feet Cool on Ice (poetry), Prophets in the Black Sky (drama), and a collection of his and his father’s columns entitled With the Lid Off.

In 2002 John Matshikiza was the winner of the Regional and National Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award in the Specialist Category for his column With the Lid Off. After being Director of Culture at the Goree Institute, Senegal, Matshikiza recently became a Fellow at the University of Witwatersrand at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER).

Born in Zimbabwe, Luthuli’s parents moved to the UK in 1967. This was where most of his love for the theatre was cultivated. After a few stints in various theatres around the UK, Luthuli decided to move to South Africa. He landed the role of a young black South Londoner with mental problems in Maralin Vanrenen’s theatrical masterpiece Blue/Orange. “That was such a fantastic challenge and I got a chance to work alongside Ashley Dowds and Ron Smerczak whom I credit as my mentor.” Luthuli finds the stage more rewarding that TV. He says that TV is more of a challenge because, unlike on stage, he has to wait a while for the audience’s reaction. “Although it may seem as though I’ve always been into acting I also wanted to be a million things like all other kids. At some point I wanted to be a boxer, an astronaut, an engineer, an investor, a doctor, an actor, a filmmaker and lots of other things…”