South African comedy Fanie Fourie s Lobola rakes in international awards

Eduan van Jaarsveldt (Fanie) and Zethu Dlomo (Dinky) star in Fanie Fourie's Lobola.

The latest of several awards for Johannesburg boy Henk Pretorius's film Fanie Fourie's Lobola came in the form of the prestigious Audience Choice Award at last month's Seattle International Film Festival. The Seattle Film Festival is one of the biggest gatherings of filmmakers, actors and industry professionals in the United States. The event spans 25 days during which there are over 700 screenings of over 447 international films.

Pretorius, director and co-writer of Fanie Fourie's Lobola and seasoned filmmaker with Dark Matters Studios, said, Seattle is one of the best experiences of my life. We had two sold out shows. People were queuing to get in.

This is not the first award for Fanie Fourie's Lobola. The South African film was entered into the Jozi and Sedona Film Festivals and in both events it won the Audience Choice Award.

Fanie Fourie's Lobola was produced by business partners Lance Samuels and Kweku Mandela (Nelson Mandela's grandson), of Out of Africa Entertainment, known to UK audiences for co-producing the ITV TV series Wild at Heart.

Starring Eduan van Jaarsveldt and Zethu Dlomo as Fanie and Dinky, Fanie Fourie's Lobola is a romantic comedy that follows an unlikely couple from very different cultural backgrounds who fall in love and soon find themselves having to negotiate their way through the complicated process of lobola, a South African tradition that finds the groom's family negotiating for a bride price.

Pretorius describes the film as an authentic story about cultural differences it's a romantic comedy and explores who we are as South Africans and why we are significant as a nation. It explores the place of a white person in South Africa, the place of an Afrikaner and the place of a Zulu person. Our traditions clash, but through shared experiences we can create something new, work together and even love.

It's a coffee shop movie, adds Llewelynn Greeff of Dark Matters Studios. It's the kind of film people talk about over a coffee afterwards.

Released in March this year, Fanie Fourie's Lobola enjoyed a phenomenal 12-week run in South African cinemas, which is fantastic in a country where Hollywood has reigned for so long. The reviews in South Africa were great. We went out and bought all the papers. One of the best reviews was from Die Beeld. They said, This is a gem,' which is great coming from quite a conservative newspaper, says Greeff.

Dark Matters Studios, run by Greeff and Pretorius, has a business-model approach to filmmaking. Every film I make is aimed at a specific audience and it's a commercially viable venture. This comes with challenges because you need to do your research, know what the audience wants and how they think, explained Pretorius.

Set in the new' South Africa, this film is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-racial story, which presents quite a few challenges. Pretorius explains, It would be good to just use English, but then the distributors will tell you that you are competing with Hollywood films. It's a story about clashes, so using different languages is an advantage to the story. South Africans don't take themselves too seriously; it's the world that wants to handle our issues with kit gloves. The film opens up issues and laughs at them to the point where it can be rather edgy.

Following the film's success with festival audiences, three companies have signed a deal to distribute the film internationally. Fanie Fourie's Lobola will get a UK screening and will be available on DVD from the usual online retailers later this year.

LINK:	http://www.thesouthafrican.com/entertainment/south-african-comedy-fani...
	See more stories from thesouthafrican

Most recent headlines