British actor can’t get enough of visiting SA
WHEN visitors from overseas use words like “yoh” in an interview you can instantly tell they frequent the country often, so much so that they’re at home with our lingo and lifestyle.
UK actor Ronak Patani, who plays the lead in award-winning South African director Sara Blecher’s new film Mayfair, was in Durban to promote the film recently.
“This will be my fourth trip now. Yoh! Can I get a passport now?” he joked.
“I honestly don’t think I’ll ever stop visiting. South Africa is such a mesmerising country,” said the actor who also stopped over in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Patani, a British Asian actor, stars as the character Zaid in the film. According to a media statement, Zaid is fired from his job overseas at a refugee camp.
He returns home to Mayfair, Johannesburg, where his overbearing father Aziz (Rajesh Gopie), a businessman and occasional money launderer, is facing death threats. The film will release on October 26.
Commenting on his thoughts around the development of film in South Africa, Patani said the country has been a hub for international filmmakers for a while.
“You only have to look at the amount of Bollywood and Hollywood movies that are shot here every year to see that. But in terms of South African films being seen on a global stage, I think it’s only a matter of time until the world sees what it is missing out on. While we were shooting, I caught some incredible South African films that were on. The quality is undoubtedly there, but any South African indie film will always find it hard to break through unless people turn up to catch it at the cinema.”
Patani said he first discovered his love of cinema at the age of 16 when he and his family had just moved to the UK from India.
“I met some people at my new school who put me in touch with the English teacher who had a love of film. We had a great chat, and he brought me onto the set of his short film that he was shooting that weekend with some present and ex-students.
“I remember lugging all the equipment around, setting up the lights, listening to the director and DOP (director of photography) have conversations about how to shoot the scene, then getting a chance to be on screen, learn the script in a flash, then improvising dialogue if it went wrong. I just loved the atmosphere. I thought if I could do this every day, that would be a dream.”
As he continues to live out this dream, Patani has thus far accumulated a number of successes. He debuted in the Hollywood remake of Point Break.
He said he has been inspired by a number of people on his journey, but Irfaan Khan is his “idol”.
In Mayfair, Patani said he could relate and identify similarities between him and his character, and much of the “internal conflict” of Asian men. He said he most enjoyed working with Bletcher and the cast and visiting Mayfair, the mosque in Linden and the bakeries in Emmarentia.
Mayfair screened at the BFI London Film Festival (10 to 21 October) and will also screen at Africa in Motion (AiM) in Scotland, from 26 October to 4 November.