Student Oscar candidate discues his film Homele

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Student Oscar candidate discusses his film Homeless --

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 11:50

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SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: Nathan Rice is a 26-year-old filmmaker from KwaZulu Natal, who has just completed a three year degree in Motion Picture Writing and Directing at AFDA Durban. His short film Homeless was recently nominated as a candidate for the 2015 Academy of Motion Picture Awards in the best short foreign student film category, after it received the highest Audience and Critics score at the AFDA graduate festival. The film tells the story of two brothers who live in an informal settlement and are forcefully removed.

Homeless was inspired by a newspaper article I once read about people who had been evicted from their shacks in an informal settlement. These people were left homeless, without possessions, and had nowhere to go. The story interested me a lot and I decided to look up more about it. I found that there were many such stories in Durban and as I found more and more information about it, I realised that I needed to tell this story, says Rice.

The film was shot using an Arri Alexa camera by director of photography Bradley McGee over six days - mainly in the Springfield and Greenwood Park areas in Durban. Justin Case was responsible for editing, Darren Jaynarayan handled sound design and Londiwe Shange was the producer. The main actor in the film was Cebo Zikhali a third year performance student at AFDA. Rice says he had approached Zikhali about the role before he even started writing the screenplay. I have worked with him before on other short films and I have always been a fan of his work. Therefore, before I even started writing the screenplay, I started chatting to him to see if he would be interested in the role. Cebo was very excited from the start and from very early conversations with him about the character I knew that he was the right person to play the role. He could identify with so much of the character and was able to bring his own style to it that I never would have been able to come up with on my own, he explains.

But working with the child actor in the film proved to be one of the biggest challenges for Rice, who had to direct in Zulu, as the actor could barely speak any English. I had heard and read a lot about working with child actors, but now I got to do it myself. Its a challenge because you often have to find the right balance and have to always be mindful of their time, says Rice.

While Homeless deals with a specific and current issue of vagrancy in the city of Durban, its relevance extends to a global audience as well. If we look at the refugee status in so many countries and these stories hitting the news all the time, I think that people will find that the Homeless tackles these current issues that everyone knows about, says Rice. More than a story about a physical homelessness, this film is about the homelessness of the soul. The film can be an encouragement to anyone as it is about finding a reason to keep going, even when youve lost everything. I think that this uplifting theme can resonate with everyone.

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