GALO: And how has the death of Mandela affected your film?

SB: I think his death for people in South Africa has really focused the whole country on what that freedom that we fought for was supposed to be about, versus what it has become about. I mean, it’s an extraordinary thing when a whole country asks those questions at the same time. Suddenly, the leaders we have are being questioned, and people are saying, “You know, we don’t have to have you, we can have leaders actually bringing the ideals that this freedom was supposed to be about.”

I don’t know if you saw, but there was a big rally here during the mourning in a big stadium in Soweto and the President was booed. He came on stage and people booed and booed and booed, and in South Africa that’s a radical thing, that never happens. People are suddenly looking at our current president saying, “What are you doing? This wasn’t what it was about.” I mean, that’s so exciting and, in many ways, that’s the questions that the film raises.

GALO: The conclusion was very sad, but it did end on a hopeful note, looking at today’s generation of children in South Africa. Hope in this film figures intensely as a theme, especially for the conclusion for Otelo’s story, despite the circumstances. What can you tell us about the scene after the shooting of Mandla when he takes to the waves — one could read it as the one last ride after this young man threw his life away by ending another’s, but at the same time, Otelo got to fly, just like he wanted.

SB: That was the intention. I think the real conclusion of the film was New Year teaching the next generation. We have to take these stories and we have to learn from them. We have to not refute them. We have to take the lessons that we got from these stories and pass them on. So, in a way, I guess it’s like what we saw in Mandela’s funeral. There are enough good people, and when enough good people say enough then you can really move mountains.

GALO: The cinematography in the film is beautiful. Were you familiar with the sport of surfing and directing someone on a surfboard? What were you looking for in terms of an actor’s portrayal while surfing?

SB: The surf-filming was done by a crew of surfers, these absolute lunatic guys. When there were good waves, I’d be like, “okay, let’s film some surfing because the waves are good,” [and] they’d be like, “wait, we have to go and surf now!”

I bodyboard; I don’t surf. In fact, Sihle taught me how to bodyboard during the course of my friendship with him. It’s one of the real gifts he’s given me. I think to make a film like this, you really have to understand what that feeling you get from surfing is, because without understanding that feeling, freedom doesn’t make any sense. That’s what we tried to do with the surfing, tried to explain to people who don’t surf how freedom feels.

GALO: Your film was partially funded by the government to promote cinema in the country — what do you think the impact of this film was on SA cinema — and in particular, how was it received by the young black men and women in South Africa of similar ages to the protagonists?

SB: There was an overwhelming response from young people. One of them said to me, “you know, I studied Mandela, I studied Steve Biko, but I never could imagine what apartheid would be like if I, just a normal person, was living in apartheid.” I think it raises questions about freedom for them. I think young people are really questioning what they want from this country, and they don’t have baggage. I think this film helps them with those questions, to be honest.

The big effect that the film had here is [that] before the film there were very, very, very few black guys who surfed. [But] since the film played, suddenly, you’re walking the beachfront and there are so many black guys on surfboards. I guess when you put an image of something on the big screen and people see it, it becomes possible.

GALO: Water is obviously very important in the film. To different characters, it represents freedom, the unknown, hope, betrayal, and even death. Could you talk about its use as a symbol and its effect?

SB: For Otelo, the ocean is absolutely about a way out. It’s completely about a world where everything about your life that is horrible can cease to exist and you can see possibilities of things. And as he says in the conversation with Dezi when she says she’s been raped, maybe he shouldn’t have gone looking for this thing, because when he found it, it was a poison chalice. Freedom comes with so many other things, and if you can’t protect yourself against those things, then it eats you up.

For an older generation of many Zulu people, the ocean was terrifying, especially in South Africa where there are sharks everywhere — sharks eat people quite often actually, and the currents, people drown all the time here. It’s not like a Mediterranean beach where the water laps on the shore. The water is insane, especially in this part of the coastline, and, I think, older people protected their children from going in the water by telling them these stories about what lives under the water, and therefore, you mustn’t go there. It’s a deeply held belief.

GALO: How have your experiences shaped your decisions as a filmmaker, shaped what interests you? Did you start out wanting to make a film about freedom and found the right story, or did the story itself motivate you to make the film?

SB: I’ve lived through freedom in South Africa, and when you live through it — I worked as a journalist when I first came back here — when you’re so intimately involved in watching the cost of it and watching what happens to it, you are compelled to tell that story. Freedom is so expensive. It costs so many lives. You have to have the responsibility of delivering on that.

“Otelo Burning” is currently available digitally via Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube, among others. For more information about the film, please visit http://www.oteloburning.com.


Video Courtesy of: Jana Erasmus.

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Featured image: Jafta Mamabolo (Otelo), Sihle Xaba (Mandla) and Thomas Gumede (New Year) star in “Otelo Burning.” Photo Credit: Cinga Productions.