The 44th Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) begins on July 20, returning to Suncoast CineCentre after a three-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 national lockdown.
90 films from 54 countries will be showcased, including Sheetal Magan’s short film, City of Ashes that zooms in on matters of our future.
For Magan, a career in storytelling using the medium of film was somewhat of a serendipitous outcome of her journey through teenage rebellion.
She is known for tackling taboos in her works and reflecting on matters of humanity.
Born and raised in Johannesburg, Magan attended Roedean Private Girls School, and later The South African School of Motion Picture, where she studied film for four years, majoring in writing and directing.
She also studied visual anthropology in Berlin for two years, completing a Master’s degree.
Currently based in South Africa, the 36-year-old explained how she came to find her passion for film.
“I was rebellious in my final years of high school, being at an all girls private school, and much of my escape came in meeting new and interesting people in Melville. Many of the artists and intellectuals I met at that age were film-makers and film students at The South African School of Motion Picture. Feeling that sense of tribe for the first time in my life, I became interested in studying film. I had held a lifelong passion for film and cinema, so it felt like a natural conclusion to go to film school.”
Magan earned a reputation for tackling social taboos with her early short film work, God dank vir Klank, a mockumentary about Die Antwoord and the appropriation of “Zef Culture”; and The Fall of Ganesh, described as a slice of life that looks at race in suburban South Africa.
“I am inspired by different things, but my films and projects are often driven by something personal and at times, in the case of the The Fall of Ganesh, by real life. I am drawn to complex female characters who challenge social norms and that oftentimes can come with tackling social taboos. At present I am also interested in representing the Indian community and telling stories in the Indian community which have nuance.”
According to the plot for City of Ashes, the year is 2035 in a near dystopian future. The world has fallen into mayhem as an airborne virus without discernible origin and no cure has led to a global pandemic infecting all seven continents, drawing humanity into mass crisis.
The old are all but extinct, the young struggle to survive past birth, and those who remain are divided in a society that is rigorously controlled by the government.
Unknown to everyone, the fate of humanity is being decided on the chaotic streets of Ground Zero, the Johannesburg city slums. It is not by the government and its failing medical grants and welfare distribution, nor by the scientists and the medical industrial complexes futile search for a cure, but in the arms of an unsuspecting young woman – Tshengedzo – who holds closely her healthy baby boy, Cashile.
“City of Ashes was initially inspired by the HIV pandemic and I wrote it in my final year at The South African School of Motion Picture, but we never quite completed the project. When the real pandemic hit, I was doing my MA in Berlin and was struck at how much of the world we created held up against reality and this inspired another dive into this project.
“The process became experimental, including a study of 10 women who gave birth in the pandemic and ultimately also needed to reflect how I have changed as an artist since I wrote, and so the approach became very metaphysical,” said Magan.
“The story is set in a world where citizens have little rights and the re-emergence of apartheid signifies a rise in authoritarianism. I don’t think its the work of speculative fiction to predict the future so much as to reflect on the dangers and possibilities of the present. The film speaks to a rise of authoritarianism in the world, the political fragility we all now experience in a post-pandemic era and how race and class issues are affected by these changes.
“I drew inspiration from the experimentation on black bodies in the field of medicine during slavery in essence to speak about personal franchise for the most marginalised in an increasingly Orwellian world. But at its heart the film is a reflection on a question I think we are still trying to answer: How do these events affect us at a spiritual level? In the film if we sacrificed the sanctity of motherhood to save our species, are we damning ourselves at a core spiritual level? Does our appreciation of the value of life change?” she said.
Magan is currently in development on her feature film The Day And Night Of Brahma with Urucu Media. Her other projects include Acts Of Man, a neo-noir crime drama for the BBC, and The Queue, a dystopian telling of life after the Arab Spring in the vein of Orwell’s 1984, with the Film Clinic in Egypt.
The DIFF returns to the Suncoast CineCentre after a three-year hiatus due to the national lockdown.
The festival, presented by the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, will showcase 90 films from 54 countries.
The programme includes films and documentaries, which featured at the Cannes Film Festival, the Sundance Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. For the full programme vist festival website.
* City of Ashes screens on July 24 at Suncoast Cinecentre. Tickets can be booked at cinecentre.co.za