Lights, Camera, Coming Soon

Namibia is currently shining bright as ancient Egypt in ‘The Mummy’ (2017). Jana Bruckner’s ‘The Girl from Wereldend’ is about to make financiers drool as an official project at the Durban FilmMart and Perivi Katjavivi’s ‘The Unseen’ (2016) keeps raking in the awards on the European festival scene.

Whether your only frame of reference for local cinema is ‘Katutura’ (2015) or you’re steadily catching up on our growing Namibian film canon, you’ll be ecstatic to hear that there are a number of homegrown films coming soon.

From a fright night upcoming this October to something a little sunnier on the bill for spring, the Namibian cinema scene is ready to build on its successes while exploring realism, some Afropunk and even a little poetry.

Here’s what you can watch out for in the coming months.

Written and directed by Oshoveli Shipoh and starring Sunet van Wyk and Nina Paulino, ‘Resentment’ (2017) is set to scare around Halloween. A film about a young woman who does the unspeakable to stay alive after an advanced stage cancer diagnosis, Shipoh’s short thriller presents the horror of human beings.

“I’m encouraging diversity in storytelling and more openness to the art of film making,” says Shipoh who burst onto the scene last year with a slew of promising short films.

Eager to see more creativity, increased exiting of comfort zones and genre experimentation, Shipoh urges Namibian filmmakers to have a little more fun, while audiences keen to see ‘Resentment’ should keep this in mind:

“If you’re not open-minded and you’re a sensitive viewer, don’t watch this film”.

Namibia meets Brazil in ‘The Unlikely Encounter,’ a Brazilian-Namibian coproduction set in Windhoek, directed by Andre Costa, starring Roya Diehl, Jan-Barend Scheepers, Don Stevenson, Armas Shivute, Chops Tshoopara and Lara-Lyn Ahrens.

A humorous family drama about the relational difficulties between father and son, peppered with a little coming out, a struggling artist wife and an enigmatic uncle, ‘The Unlikely Encounter’ is a story about family unfolding within the historical and cultural constraints rooted in Namibian society.

Still in production but angling towards a release near the end of this year, ‘The Unlikely Encounter’ will premiere in a local industry that supporting actress Lara-Lyn Ahrens describes as on the rise.

“The Namibian film industry is growing and improving steadily, although we still face many problems,” she says.

“A big one is setting standards and having international productions respect the standards and not exploit Namibians. I recently worked on another film production as crew where I certainly felt, once again, that Namibians need to band together to ensure that we are not taken for a ride. It was so unpleasant at one point that I considered leaving the industry as a crew member and sticking to acting in lovely productions such as this one.”

With Namibia clocking in an annual average of 300 sunny days, ‘Another Sunny Day’ (2016) sheds light on the darker side of sunshine. Billed as a short documentary by producer, writer and director Tim Huebschle, the film focuses on Paulus Johannes, a young man with albinism willing to share his story.

“Can you imagine what life must be like for someone whose skin has no protection whatsoever from the sun?” says Huebschle, whose inspiration for the film came when he was driving home from the gym. “The sun started rising above the horizon. It was bright. I didn’t have any sunglasses and the visor in my car was broken, so I had to just brave it. In that moment while evading the blinding rays of the sun, I tried to imagine how a person who has no pigmentation must feel,” he says.

“Especially in this country, where the sun is almost always present. And so the idea for ‘Another Sunny Day’ was born.” Produced with the assistance of Support in Namibia of Albinism Sufferers Requiring Assistance (Sinasra) where he met Johannes for the first time, the film delves into his experience and offers a different perspective on sunshine in this country.

“’Another Sunny Day’ is a film that touches the audience and leaves them with an emotional connection to a person with albinism – living in a very sunny country.” Slated to premiere this September after the selection process for the ‘Don’t Stop Wondering’ competition of the Jozi Film Festival, ‘Another Sunny Day’ is upcoming in a local film industry Huebschle describes as tricky.

“As you can imagine in the tough economic times our country is experiencing currently, this too has definitely trickled down to our industry. However, the urge to have our stories told remains ever-present,” says Huebschle. “Now it’s about being innovative in our approach to making movies. We can no longer rely on big productions with big crews. We have to make do with the resources we have – and maybe even find a more befitting way of unlocking our potential as compelling storytellers.”

Zooming in on the city’s correctional facilities, ‘Salute!’ tells the story of Carlito, a young man jailed for theft. Transcribed, produced and directed by Philippe Talavera as a result of a workshop with inmates at the Windhoek Correctional Facility alongside two ex-inmates who helped polish the script, ‘Salute!’ is a feature length drama boasting heavy doses of realism.

Starring Adriano Visagie as Carlito, Odile Muller, Monray Garoeb, Dawie Engelbrecht, Desmond Kamerika and Sakanombo Kasoma as well as David Ndjavera and Mara Baumgartner, the film is perhaps Namibia’s first to address life in Namibia’s correctional facilities.

“It is a difficult environment to live in,” says Talavera. “We often prefer to forget these places exist: They are for the ‘bad guys’. ‘Salute!’ questions if correctional facilities are the best way to ‘punish’ people for the crime they commit.”

Describing the film as extremely controversial and produced in partnership with the Ministry of Safety and Security as an advocacy tool, Talavera hopes it can make a difference for inmates and in an industry which has grown a lot over the past year and is becoming increasingly ambitious.

Commenting from within a mire of editing, Oshosheni Hiveluah is almost ready to premiere ‘Underneath the Sky’ (2018), her first feature film written, directed and produced by the woman herself.

“It’s an indie so it feels like I moved the Waterberg to the seaside,” she says of the Afropunk/grunge poetry film starring Girley Jazama as Sky, Lynn Strydom, Gift Uzera, Jason Shivute and Victor Mtambanengwe with special appearances by Mathew Ishitile, Rodelio Lewis and Jaqueline Angula.

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