Putting Magic into SA film industry

When Nollywood first started, the general perception was that it wouldn't last. Most of the films made in Nigeria might have been entertaining to a point, but they broke almost all the rules known to a modern filmmaker.

Despite this, people across the continent became used to their poor quality. It's way over a decade since these films debuted and with technology becoming more affordable it's baffling that little has been done about improving their quality.

Back home, in the past two years we have adopted this guerrilla film-making trend with local channels like e.tv releasing the eKasi film series, while Mzansi Magic introduced the Lokshin Bioskop. What this did was make South Africans look at stories that they could relate to locally.

And yet the quality was still as bad as that of the original Nollywood films. There was little-to-no training in any field of film-making so several essentials were omitted, resulting in forgettable productions.

This is what Mzansi Magic is addressing this year with its new venture titled An Original Mzansi Magic Movie, which seeks to churn out high-quality movies from esteemed South African filmmakers.

To test this project, the channel has commissioned four movies to be produced by Ferguson Films, Quizzical Pictures, Bomb Shelter and Penguin Films.

to For Love For Love and Broken Bones. .

Speaking to Ayanda Halimana, the channel's commissioning editor, Tonight established that Mzansi Magic is using this project as a test run for better things to come.

We have commissioned four films from experienced production houses and are hoping to make a difference in the way films are made in South Africa, she said.

The reasoning behind making these films is mainly because the channel realised that there is a market that demands high quality local stories on film.

We have done our own internal surveys on why international material gets first preference and we discovered that quality goes a long way in attracting a viewer.

We then identified the fact that if we were to adopt those levels of quality and add entertainment value in the form of relatable stories from known local faces, there is a big chance viewers will take our work seriously, she said.

This led to the production of four films, The Gift (Ferguson Films), Rise (Quizzical Pictures), Ingoma (Penguin Films) and For Love and Broken Bones (Bomb Shelter). The first two have already aired on Mzansi Magic and any film critic will attest to their brilliant ready-for-cinema look and feel.

A huge budget has been put in place to see just how far we can push this project. We decided to start with four renowned production companies to set the precedent and when we get to our targets we will open the gates to other filmmakers, she said.

We are looking at going back to the drawing board with the feedback we would get from the first three films so that we know how to navigate for the rest of the year. There is a lot that we have in mind for this project. Since the films are even good enough for circuit release, in future we might want to look in the cinema direction and perhaps DVDs, but our main focus is to have our subscribers enjoy superior productions in the comfort of their homes, said Halimana.

Catch Ingoma on February 1 and For Love and Broken Bones on March 1 at 8pm on Mzansi Magic (DStv channel 161).

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