Shooting in Alexandra - Part ONE

Alexandra is more than just a juxtaposition to Sandton. It is a sign that while unleashing the most ruthless system of governance on majority Black people in South Afrika – the Boers also had a sense of humour. To create two worlds just a few kilometres of each other, separated by a freeway is but the worst form of mental torture one can inflict on people they don’t like.

An academic I chatted with some few years ago said that even if you were blindfolded and driven through Sandton and later taken to Alexandra you can still feel the contrast. “in Sandton you will smell the sweet aroma of freshly-mowed lawn while Alexandra will give you a stench of raw sewerage and dry urine only synonymous with squalor”

We took the shoot for Cast The First Stone to Alexandra for a simple reason that the story of how Father Nicholas negotiates his calling through pain and ‘divine’ deception is set in Alexandra. In the film Alexandra is not just a backdrop but an integral part of the story character. It is not just a wallpaper at the mercy of glorification by a film crew out to smell raw sewerage and bid this failed experiment goodbye when it wraps. Alexandra is a reality some call home.

We turned up in Alex on Monday morning and as we knew were welcomed by hordes of people living under the sun, drinking, smoking, doing their laundry while some were just going about their day. The first thing you notice through the eye of a social scientist is that unemployment is rampant. Overpopulation gives Alex its gritty realism, the poverty aesthetic often loved by documentaries about why sad stores continue to be told. Alex has a Beijing complex.

Cast the First Stone is set in this disappointment. The hundreds of people who wake up to face an empty day are mirrored in the characters of Bongani, Mpho and Sipho. The bad role-modelling often synonymous with townships serves as a slate onwhich the three township youths find their future already chalked. Such hopelessness can only be explored in a township such as Alexandra. The people of Alex are clean and proud. They are humble and policed by an ever visible SAPS police van, sedan or kombi. They work hard when there’s work to do.

They offer their toilets to the crew members at no fee. It’s a relief given that we pay R2 to use a public toilet in town. We pay nothing to these people with nothing – who want so much.

As the crew gathers expensive equipment and rolls metres of cable for the day as rain comes down, the only relief one feels at leaving 6^th Avenue as we found it is that Cast the First Stone will tell the story of this community to a bigger audience – people will explore Alex – minus the stench of raw sewerage and numbing poverty.

However we feel duty-bound to portray the rat holes – the human passages, the slum, the dilapidation through the lens of a camera. Maybe Cast the First Stone will be a small mirror and a minor step – but we know it will be a giant leap since the Alexandra Renewal Project.

TO COMMENT ON THIS POST GO TO OUR FACEBOOK PAGE: THE Kasiekulture BLOG & write your comment on the wall

Part TWO

Shooting films in Alexandra is more than just being moths attracted to a bright light. Alexandra is not that bright which makes this endeavour a civil duty. It is also about using the power of the visual media to bring to the screen stories about spaces that otherwise would have fallen into the cracks. This township is not just surreality and grit, it is also a bearer of giants that went on to make an impact in the lives of all South Afrikans. You mention Prof Wally Serote, Arts and Culture Minister Paul Mashatile, Gauteng Sports, Arts and Culture MEC Lebogang Maile, Leepile Taunyane etc.

So, when on the second day of the shoot it took us time to start working I felt that the pace was understandable – the reason we were too slow to move was because we were carrying the whole township on our shoulders. When someday director Shaft mounts that stage and receives that award for Best Picture, when he mentions the derelict kasie nestled between affluence, the whole world will have to stop and take a notice. They will have to ask ‘where in the damn world is this celebrated Alexandra?”

Of course there are landmarks in the world that gained their notoriety from having served as movie backdrops for some of the world’s award-winning flicks. We hope when we call it a wrap, Alex, Ga-Mampjana will be a tourist destination with all the benefits of Euros and dollars accruing to this community. Movies don’t only make sense when they were shot on expensively constructed sets, think Slumdog Millionaire and City Of God. They make sense because a good story is getting told – with apologies to Sex & the City II.

While on set, in conversation with the crew and cast we joked about spaghetti westerns where they simply secure vacant land from the municipality and recreate the whole damn El Paso or Texas with wood and nails. They shoot on that set with every living object being an extra and every cauldron and spike being a prop. Their wardrobe is imaginary as if it was borrowed from Terminator 10 – I won’t be back. They love crane shots to market the set builders who are the producer’s cousin. After the shoot they demolish everything and leave – well, nothing except dead grass. Or in a twist to the script the whole town gets burned down by a deranged Sheriff.

They don’t feel indebted to any local as they shop the film to festivals and scoop awards for gore and a number of bullets fired in one shootout where nobody got shot. Maybe that’s why that genre never survived civilisation – it just lacked soul.

Kanye West raps I’m Coming Home, “in my heart is where she’ll always be/ she never mess with entertainers cuz they always leave’. Maybe Alex can claim the same thing about its heroes. Most of them always leave for Sandton next door – but it can rest assured in the heart of the crew of Cast the First Stone that’s where she’ll always be. She can mess with filmmakers cuz they always bring the Oscar back.

Making films is always about networking – building those eternal networks you will tap into at some stage in your life. When you are on set with talented actors such as Bra Jeff Sekele, Vuyo Dabula, Siya Ngwekazi, Kagiso Gwyza and many others there’s no dull moment. I always suspected from his music but I found Gwyza to be such a funny guy, I don’t know if he knows it – he can crack a stand-up comedy set hands down. He said a whole load of funny stuff about Brazilian weaves that kept me and producer, Sechaba in stitches.

Slums are disturbing as well and Alexandra has its fair share. While policed like South Central Los Angeles (minus the ghetto birds) it is surprising that some suspected conman at 3^rd Avenue still got jumped so bad it gave me a cramp in my stomach. I hate blood and gore even though a few will get spilled in Cast the First Stone.

With its ever-smiling people and lots of schoolchildren who just wanted to be part of history and the hard-working cast that just wanted to have the job done, it was sad when on the second day one said ‘goodbye’ to Ga-Mampjana (Gomorah) and its squalor. Like Kanye said, ‘in my heart is where she’ll always be’. Come on, mess with me baby cuz I’ll be gone til November but I’ll always come back.

TO COMMENT ON THIS POST GO TO OUR FACEBOOK PAGE: THE Kasiekulture BLOG & write your comment on the wall

LUV UR HOOD - MANGOZI YA TALA KA SPICE

Mpumalanga’s flagship hip hop pilgrimage, Luv Ur Hood (themed Marope Ra Maja) kicked off 2011 with a bang. Within a short space of four months the session hosted two shows that exposed new emcees, new voices and new patrons to this grassroots hip hop extravaganza pioneered by Katsuko and Masta H.

The 2011 revolution, started off on 26 March with an outing to Love Life Centre at Acornhoek. Luv Ur Hood has never been held outside of its home Ga-Kabila, which is a chillaz doubling as a car-wash.

In its inaugural outside venture it attracted new emcees who have performed in bedrooms and garages thinking the world was four by four metres wide. It exposed the talent of cats such as Eardrumbusters whose intimidating lyrics reminds one of deceased geniuses, Tupac and Biggie. There was also Thulamahashe’s finest in Crazy Doggz, who are a tight set led by C-well, a

veteran of the game.

Mesmerizing was the performance of KFB and newcomer to the game Young KC. Modelling his style and swag after the Young Money crew, KC had half the crowd eating out of his palm as he was accompanied by his cousin and hypeman for the day Masta H. At least a hundred patrons were entertained. With regulars DJ Sparkle, newcomers JOP, Wonder, Chris Force Feed and two DJs from Radio Bushbuckridge KP and Matt the show gave a platform to b-boys Wild Cats. There were also life skills offered by the Love Life team.

On 24 April, barely a month later the duo took the session, themed Mangozi ya tala ka Spice, back to its spiritual home, Ga-Kabila in Shatale. Characterised by a proliferation of tight emcees and ghetto merchandise on sale and display, the Freedom Day eve show was off the hook.

Krazy Doggz brought their whole entourage to the show which was graced by hundreds of good-looking patrons. Blue Noise from Sabie performed and bootlegged their CD titled Focused. Young KC held down the stage but the show was flipped by Dwarsloop’s manic Dialectic. This brother to Sparkle free-styled with so much flow that even KFB who free-styles had to pick up his game. On the day Katsuko performed what is undoubtedly going to become the Luv Ur Hood anthem titled Ke Tšwa Bush. On a show that was more about flexing muscles and impressing hordes of senhoritas, C-well blasted, KP and Masta H spit rhymes in Get Your Swag On, a song from H’s still-in-the-kitchen mixtape.

On sale were mixtapes from Krazy Doggz and Blue Noise. Also sold were tons of t-shirts by 100% Lepulana/Tsonga, Re Phela SOH, Luv Ur Hood, Shatale Ya Rocka etc. Langa Media’s Nellie Ndlovu (publisher of Bushbuckridge News) graced the event and showed interest in a partnership. The next Luv Ur Hood show will be hosted by Krazy Doggz in Thulamahashe in June.

TO COMMENT ON THIS POST GO TO OUR FACEBOOK PAGE: THE Kasiekulture BLOG & write your comment on the wall