‘The White Line’ Finally Hits Ster-Kinekor

If there’s any indication of how eagerly Namibians have been anticipating the local release of ‘The White Line’ (2019), by Tuesday, tickets for last night’s Ster-Kinekor screening were already gone with the wind.

Having officially premiered at the Durban International Film Festival last year before embarking on a festival run that has seen the award-winning film screened in Egypt, North America, Venezuela, Spain and South Africa to name a few, the apartheid-era drama about love across the strict colour lines of the time returns to Namibia distributed by Gravel Road Films.

“For us, the producers, releasing this film in Namibia has been a long time coming,” says ‘The White Line’ co-writer and director Desiree Kahikopo-Meiffret, who won best newcomer film director at the Namibian Theatre and Film Awards for her efforts last year.

“We have had financial struggles, struggles to find a distributor, basically Murphy’s law with this film. So when we finally had a chance to release it in April this year we were really excited for the Namibian audiences to finally see the movie but then the pandemic came and held everything back.”

Capitalising on the lifting of lockdown as well as the reduction in films arriving from pandemic-struck Hollywood, Kahikopo-Meiffret presents the film during a relative sweet spot.

“Hollywood is halted at the moment so we thought why not release the film right now when there is no competition for the audience’s attention and our little film can actually compete with the major studios,” she says. “Hopefully we can draw audiences to the cinema with a local production.”

Set a few years after the Old Location Uprising, ‘The White Line’ tells the story of a domestic worker and a white, Afrikaans police officer who begin an illicit romance in a white supremacist world defined by whites-only entrances, sundown suburbs, passbooks, excessive violence, unbridled racism and enforced segregation.

Shot in Otjiherero and Afrikaans with English subtitles, the film stars Girley Jazama, Jan-Barend Scheepers, Muhindua Kaura, Sunet van Wyk, Charl Botha, Joalette de Villiers, Vanessa Kamatoto, Mervin ‘Cheez’ Uahupirapi and Desmond Katamila.

Considering the reception of the film at home, on the continent and abroad, Kahikopo-Meiffret says the response has been controversial.

“There have been different responses from different people. I believe it’s how each individual interprets the story from where they are emotionally or psychologically,” she says.

“Some people love it. They understand the history, they understand where we are right now and they resonate with the characters through their parents or their grandparents, as they grew up hearing the stories from them.

“Some people are not happy with the subject matter. They feel we are dragging up the past and creating unnecessary anger and hatred. They feel we should bury the past and let it be where it is. And we have also gotten some anger about the story.

“Maybe it’s a race thing? It should be interesting what the conversation will be after Namibians watch the full film.”

Regardless of any controversy, Kahikopo hopes people will see the film she created alongside award-winning screenwriter Michael Pulse and come to terms with it on their own.

“I think everybody urgently needs to see this film. From young to old, from black to white and all tribes. It is a film about love, identity and it’s about the freedom to be who you are and to love who you want. It’s about our past which we don’t get to see often on a big screen,” she says.

“The film shows two sides of the white line and how it affected various communities and people differently. It also shows where some of the hate and anger came from because it wasn’t just black and white, although it was black and white.”

Kahikopo-Meiffret also makes the case that racism isn’t something in the distant past but is, in fact, very much a part of our lives in the present day.

“The world and Namibia are still fighting racism whether it is individual, systematic, generational or police brutality. I believe we as a people, especially the older generation, don’t really talk about the past and thus we are not able to heal, move forward and see each other as simply human beings from both sides,” she says.

“I hope this film brings people together to have a conversation and hopefully respect and appreciate each other’s differences. My hope is to set box office history with a Namibian film. Please come out and watch our film in numbers like we do with Hollywood films so we can create a ripple effect for other local productions.”

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