About the Director
Simon Klose is a globe-trotting filmmaker who we had the good fortune to meet as he passed through New York City.
Along with documentaries such as Sweet Memories, Simon also has a number of music videos under his belt, such as this one with the South African musician Zoro.
Those interested in contacting Simon about Sweet Memories or his upcoming work can do so by emailing him directly at s [at] klo [dot] se.
What brought you to South Africa and how did you find this story?
Simon Klose: I went to South Africa to write my masters in Law at the University of Natal Durban. I wrote about the collision between the position of women in South African customary (tribal) law versus their position in the new constitution.
My real plan however was to find a story to film. When I moved to Johannesburg my neighbour Ndedu told me he knew a couple of dudes in Soweto that I had to party with.
He said they were really laid back and didn’t even carry guns. So I went to see them for a Friday night street bash and ended up staying with them for almost a year.
Your subjects are “outsiders.” They’re former theives trying to lead a legal life, they are black in a white-dominated, post-apartheid society. What did you learn from them, and is it a goal of the film to teach people about society and class in South Africa?
Simon Klose: In South Africa today the Johannesburg Airport is named after Jan Smuts — one of the architects of grand apartheid. Most major streets have Boer names. Every university has their own bronze statue of a mass murderer still standing.
Can you picture Germany having a Hitler Airport and a Goebbles statue at Berlin University in 2007?
I definitely believe that South Africans need to talk more about the class system the apartheid regime left them in.
After a decade of democracy most Sowetans feel that change is coming too slow. While black people were celebrating their freedom, white corporations were entrenching their businesses to make sure they would still own the economical infrastructure.
All of the sudden they had 30 million new consumers — black, colored and Indian — who could buy their cellphones, ipods and pokemon cards. The downside of course is that a lot of young people in the towships weren’t gonna take it.
While the township youth is being spoon fed smiling MTV-Africanized images, they are simultaneously being deprived higher education and any way to earn an honest living. The result is people going all out grabbing what they feel they have a right to take.
Pule and Twish [the two stars in the film] felt as cheated as most people in the township. Still they wanted to focus on the positive.
The project was all about hinting to tsotsis and thugs that there’s an alternative life to stealing bimmas. And at the same time tell the
emerging black middle class media that they should focus their blame on politicians privatizing universities and electricity rather than on kids stealing to feed their families.
Most importantly though Pule, taught me to cook a great Sunday salad and Twish taught me how to take my foot off the clutch and drive like a tsotsi.
What were your strategies for capturing this story?
Simon Klose: Be present and never stop shooting.
What were the difficulties in filming and telling this story?
Simon Klose: Not understanding what the people you’re filming are saying is one obstacle. Not being able to move around freely alone is another. Having six people starring in the film pass away was a tragedy I could never have foreseen.
Help stop the AIDS pandemic in Africa!
What did you learn in the process of making Sweet Memories, both from an artistic, as well as from a business, standpoint (e.g., allocating time and budget, etc).
Simon Klose: Sweet Memories was my first film. I learned how to greet grannies in Zulu, how to shoot, edit and color correct, how to cure hangovers with boiled pig feet, whistle my blocks don’t-fxx-with-me-melody after dark, toggle clips and recite countless Sesotho proverbs, how to rotoscope and hand draw jacked BMWs spinning in fourth gear, I learned that our narrator Senyaka’s coined phrase Fong Kong (fake) is gonna be in this year’s edition of South African English dictionaries, I learned that filming a vision can be an expensive but hilarious film school plus where to get the best peri-peri chicken in Zola 2 at four in the morning.
From a business standpoint, I learned that in a community with up to 70% unemployment rates and around 30% positive HIV rates it is hard making a living on plants and flowers.
What I didn’t learn however was how to license this film so if any networks out there has got any suggestions feel free to contact me.
Where do you go from here? What projects are you working on? Are they conceptually similar, or are you moving into different subject
areas?
Simon Klose: Right now I’m editing my next film on three homeless men in Tokyo. There are few similarities apart from the fact that both films might focus on unfortunate people with a unworldly will to overcome themselves.
What else should we know about Sweet Memories and your future work?
Simon Klose: Whenever you’re in Soweto, stop by Pule & Twish in Naledi and pick up a rose for your beloved!
And look out for our upcoming Danish Nazi rotoscoped rom-com!
