Shilpi's South African Diary - Part 1

Hello from South Africa! or as they say here, "Howzit?!"
To update you at the start of this, our film blog, Tyler (the founder of the DC program) and I have traveled out here to South Africa to start pre-production on the film -- essentially to lay down groundwork, finalize the site, meet with production contacts and shoot for a pilot reel.

We have started with GRS/Nike-run Holiday Camps in Soweto, an intriguing township of Johannesburg. Soweto was a hot-bed of political activity during Apartheid. GRS was running a condensed version of their program with middle-school aged children from the township. The kids were amazing. So enthusiastic and engrossed in the activities. What's really cool -- they separated the children into different groups and held a "world cup" tournament. They all represented different countries. And... USA killed it! They beat everyone so we have footage of South African children chanting and singing African songs about USA being #1. And no, we didn't rig that! ;) We also luckily got a shot of South Africa playing the US (the kids!)... it couldn't have been more poignant! They are holding up flags from each country, and so enthusiastic... it's funny, watching the children sparked a debate among us and the coaches: why it is that children here and perhaps even adults are so much more inclined to show their spirit through dance and song -- physically -- than in the States? I think we boiled it down to television, or rather the lack there of out here. Might be too simplistic. ;)

In the meantime, I've also been meeting with many production people. The film industry here is fervent -- obviously, I'm also exposing myself to it -- but it seems to be in full throttle. In fact much of the promo work in America takes place here. So ... perhaps I'll move to Johannesburg from July through December to do the post on the film!...

Off to Musina in Limpopo Province. Musina is a border city with a large Zimbabwean refugee population - the NY Times had a really interesting profile on the town not too long ago (check it out!) Should be a big shift from Johannesburg and Pretoria... Stay tuned!

Team Up!

Shilpi