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Wild Coast movie a hit on Showmax

ROSA-KAROO LOEWE

SA’s hottest Afrocentric fantasy series, Blood Psalms, was released on Showmax on Wednesday and has already shot up to the number one most watched show on the site.

Filmed during the hard lockdown in 2020, the cast and production crew filmed on location in parts of the Eastern Cape including Coffee Bay, Hole-in-the-Wall, Gwadana in former Transkei, the Valley of Desolation in the Karoo and Graaff-Reinet.

“Coffee Bay is one of the most beautiful places in the world,” said producer and creator Jahmil Qubeka.

Award-winning director, producer and writer, of Yellowbone Productions, Qubeka said though he had filmed in the Eastern Cape before, the scale of production for Blood Psalms was significantly larger.

“I’m a Karoo boy, even though I grew up in Mdantsane, I was born in Somerset East.

“My work has always been about going home, and bringing ‘the circus’ to the Karoo wasn’t new, but this was a spectacle and a huge team.”

Qubeka said more than 2,000 people were involved in filming the action-adventure series over an 83-day period.

“Filming along the Wild Coast was beautiful and challenging at the same time.

“What feeds us about the Eastern Cape is its people, there is so much generosity and you can never put a price on that.”

The series depicts epic long shots of rolling waves, high green hills and dry arid plateaus of the Karoo, the landscape intertwined with the narrative of the multiple tribes residing within its borders.

Qubeka said the challenges they faced while working in this environment were due to crumbling infrastructure.

“The derision of infrastructure is problematic, the lack of proper roads for example going to Coffee Bay was hell trying to get there.

“Our film crew is fairly independent but still, it was difficult to manoeuvre.

“There are opportunities here for the film industry, we shot here and so did Survivor SA, but the province needs a functional film office.

“There are films and productions shot here that you don’t even know about, and having a proper office where this could be tracked and registered would benefit the industry here.”

Filming on location in Graaff-Reinet came with its own trials and triumphs.

“Graaff-Reinet has its own infrastructure, and the people were incredibly welcoming, the local municipality let us film at the Graaff-Reinet dam — across the board, we were always met with enthusiasm.

“We’ve never seen black people in these fundamental archetypes, speaking their own language and in circumstances they don’t have to be apologetic for.

“For once a major production is focused on Africa without the added frills of politics.

“This is fundamentally a form of escapism designed for the African child to awaken the imagination.”

Local actress Tumie Ngumla, 36, from Port St Johns, who plays the part of Thozama, said the cast were excited to have the chance to travel to her home province.

Ngumla said: “There are a lot of things in SA we are not ready for, and this series is creating a platform for a fantasy show some say is like an African Game of Thrones.

“Everybody was so excited to be out of Joburg and for a lot of the cast it was their first time in the Eastern Cape.

“They didn’t care that the weather wasn’t so great and obviously there were a few stuck cars but they loved it.”

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2022-10-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-10-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://dispatch.pressreader.com/article/281608129315622

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