Sanctuary for ‘arty kids’ put forward
WHEN Cry of Love was screened at the Durban International Film Festival, the film garnered a positive response from teachers.
Cry of Love producer Firdoze Bulbulia says teachers pointed out that they recognised the subjects of the film who were neither heavily academically minded, nor the sporty kids, “but the in-between, awkward kids who were more arty – the ones who were considered weird. The teachers found that there was no space for them,” Bulbulia remembers.
This recognition reinforced for the independent filmmaker the idea they had already started working on, that Cry of Love needed to be used as a resource for media studies classes, which is offered at many high school in South Africa, but lacks resources.
“The idea is to watch it in a school. The kids could watch and stop the film and then talk about what they just saw. There are lesson plans that deal with different issues, such as the xenophobia in the film. Some of the images are difficult, heavy.
“They need to be mediated. So, you need a teacher or an adult to talk through the process with the teenagers,” explained the Joburg based producer.
She thinks the film could also spark some schools to start their own sanctuaries – in the film the arts school is referred to as The Sanctuary and is meant to be a safe space for artists to express themselves and learn.
Bulbulia wants to take the idea even further by having an app created that would be a gateway to information about different issues facing various African countries, including, but not only curtailed to, South Africa – like, Cry of Love touches on issues of child soldiers and female genital mutilation.
“The film is made up of vignettes, the stories of the different characters.
“What we want is for this to be a pilot and then turn it into a TV series. When we spoke to the SABC though, they found the subject matter too difficult.
“The hardest thing is, when you talk to media savvy people they do understand, but people in general have been fed Mzansi Magic so long, that no one wants to think.”
She realises that is it a difficult film to watch: “We’re so used to byte-sized bits of information, skop skiet en donder.
“When you’re suddenly confronted, in a South African context, with these hard issues, we don’t know how to mediate it. It’s not palatable. We don’t have spaces in which to have dialogue around these issues.”
Bulbulia doesn’t see Cry as Love as only a resource for learning, but wants it to be a way to grow the filmmaking audience: “If you want to do that, grow the audience, you have to go into the schools.” ● For more details on the resource pack, contact moments@icon.co.za