SA comedy film shines in the Big Apple
● Mzansi comedy film Real Estate Sisters celebrated an exclusive premiere this week at the New York Film Academy in New York City.
The US showing follows a screening earlier this month at the Joburg Film
Festival. The film was produced, written and directed by multi-award-winning duo Reabetswe Moeti-Vogt and Zoe Ramushu. The dynamic filmmakers, who formed the Totem Zea Collective four years ago, officially announced their distribution platform in partnership with the South African consul-general in New York, the Empire State Building and the New York Film Academy.
Real Estate Sisters is one of six microbudget projects supported through a joint film fund created by Netflix, South Africa’s National Film & Video Foundation and the department of trade & industry.
Moeti-Vogt received her master’s degree from the National Film and Television
School in the UK. On her return to South Africa, she worked on numerous TV and film productions, including Lockdown, which won her the Safta Golden Horn in 2018 for Best Achievement in Scriptwriting in a TV drama, and the international adaptation of Africa’s first Ugly Betty, uBettina Wethu.
Ramushu is a South Africa-based writer, actress and journalist who was born in Zimbabwe. She previously lived in New York, where she studied documentary filmmaking at Columbia University. The 34year-old collaborated with Moeti-Vogt on the South African films Intelligent and Botlhale, which screened at the New York Africa Film Festival in 2022.
Real Estate Sisters is about two broke, but feisty and determined, real estate agent sisters from Pretoria — played by Gina Koffman (The River) and Leera Mthethwa (Gomora) — who move from selling rundown apartments to dealing with highend real estate in the wealthiest areas. When they are tasked with selling an R8m mansion through a dodgy love interest, their dreams of a big payout turn into a murder mystery after they discover a dead body in the house.
The comedy pays homage to the strong women who have had an influence on both of the directors’ lives and inspired them over the years. “We’re delving into something that’s more commercial that we wanted a broader audience to enjoy,” Ramushu told the Sunday Times.
“As for the cast, it was the first time both Gina and Leera played lead roles in a feature film. As for the sets and the crew, we needed more blacks, females and people who look and sound like us also to have a chance, because that doesn’t always happen. When you get your opportunity — and this was our first feature film — it’s so important for you also to open the door to others and create space for more diversity and variety.”
Moeti-Vogt added: “It can be so challenging for two young black women in a business such as real estate, so we really wanted to tell their stories with fun and humour — while representing where they’re from and drawing out the flavour they bring to the screen. Gina and Leera really personified what those girls were about. From a story perspective, I could only go to my personal references. I grew up in Pretoria, and that girl Malebo and that girl Lerato (in the film) — I know them. So I could already see who these characters were and what their story could be.”
Ramushu continued: “We’ve done a festival run for the film, which has been really important for us because a lot of the time with films seen on screen people don’t know a lot about what goes on behind the scenes. We really thought it was important for people to see that there are young black girls like us who can put something like this together. Hopefully, this will inspire other black females to pursue dreams that might seem unattainable.”
She said the film expressed universal themes, but with local flair. “We wanted it to be global, but at the same time incorporate our languages. We wrote the entire script in English, but we gave the cast the brief that the script should be 70% English and 30% translated, with a bit of improvisation to bring everyone into the creative process and also allow them to have some fun.
“Everyone knows that in Pretoria the lingo of Pretoria Sotho (S’Pitori) is very specific. The dialect of Setswana is kind of a mix of Sepedi, Setswana and some Tsonga, so we wanted a certain level of authenticity in terms of language. When you watch other films, there’s a lot of Zulu, but we wanted the flavour of Pretoria to come out in this movie.”
South African consul-general Ismail Esau praised the duo for inspiring African women around the world. He said Ramushu and Moeti-Vogt “demonstrate the best of our ideals — courage, intelligence, integrity, imagination and determination”.
New York Film Academy president and CEO Michael Young said: “We are thrilled about Real Estate Sisters, and it’s an example of what two filmmakers can do if they really persevere, just like the characters in the film. We’re honoured they wanted to screen with us here at NYFA. We’re an international school — half of our students are from all around the world — and we’ve had more than 600 South African students here at NYFA over the years. Many of them continue to stay in the industry and make films.”
At the Empire State Building photo shoot before the screening, Nigerian designer Chuks Collins — who has worked with celebrities including Kerry Washington, Jimmy Fallon and the Jonas Brothers — dressed the dynamic duo from his New York Fashion Week collections.