FILM:THE RISING SON OF THE SOIL

                                                   The South African London - UK   

                                          
                                
 Like the sun,Lebogang Rasethaba`s film career is rising fast in the East.In the second of a series of three profiles of young South African artists making waves with their art internationally,Daluxolo Moloantoa chops it up,without the chopsticks,with the Beijing-based film producer.

There is a scene in the film Metro by Lebogang Rasethaba where he is walking along a busy Beijing street, on the run from crooked cops who are out to extort some money from him, and he is speaking fluent Mandarin into a cellphone. Put aside the striking juxtaposition of a towering black man amongst a sea of “little people”, what leaves you utterly gobsmacked is the ease he displays at speaking the language, like… well… a Chinese man eating with chopsticks.

You don’t often get a lad  originally from Soweto spewing smooth Mandarin, and living in China,nogal. But Rasethaba does, and, like the sun, his star is rising fast in the East. Just as it would have struck you as unlikely that people of Chinese origin would be classified as black South Africans, it is quite interesting to know of how he came to work and study film there.

I moved to China in 2007 for various whys and wherefores, mostly generic,” he explains. “I wanted to see the world and do something epic … all the usual reasons for a youngster coming from the townships. My father was on a government-related visit here some years back, and he called me up from a bar and said, ‘What are your thoughts on living in China?’… At the time I was working as a junior copywriter at advertising agency JWT and looking to make the transition into film. So I was like yeah, why not? I got this scholarship to come over and study for a masters degree in filmmaking.”
 
Place seems to be a significant thread that runs through Rasethaba`s life. He spent a lot of his childhood and adolescence trudging along with his family from place to place for various reasons. Perhaps it was not then a stroke of fate that place has formed the basis of his social inspection in his films so far.

                                 
 “I spent a lot of time hanging out with bouncers from nightclubs, prostitutes, car guards… all these people who were in South Africa illegally. Even though the film was picked up and shown by a terrestrial TV channel, I still think that a lot of South Africans do not have a clue on what most these people go through to survive as illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.”

Place, or rather displacement, is a continuing theme in his next effort. Sino (2009) tells the story of two African students in Beijing, dealing with the challenges of resettlement and adaptation in a foreign country.

“Making Sino was important to me because of my own personal experience, and of other students and immigrants here, be they from Africa, Europe or Middle Eastern,” he explains. “Relocation is a universal subject and the implications thereof vary from place to place. I wanted to put it in an African context because I had a much deeper understanding of it through my own experiences here.” The film is part one of a trilogy and is to be followed by a second installment, with the working title Awake.

He followed this introductory Chinese film with Metro, a short film he released early in 2010.This first foray into fiction revolves around despair, and looks at the life of a tormented foreign university student who gets caught up in the Chinese underworld as a result of negligence by his funders to provide him with his monthly living stipend. The short film won acclaim from critics and it was shown at a number of international film festivals.

                                       

Who inspires or influences his work? 

“I think it is very indeterminate, it depends on what I am working on or what I am feeling at the time. But there are some mainstays, directors Ousmane Sembene, and Spike Lee. I like work by various directors of the French New Wave era, John Kani, Errol Morris, Werner Hertzog and Zola Maseko amongst others.”

 He points to a number of local films which he says left a distinctive mark on his imagination growing up. “Sarafina is an obvious one. Mapantsula, Last Grave At Dimbaza, Zulu Love Letter. My only gripe with the South African film industry is that, like a lot of what happens in other parts of the world, you have people making films and telling other people`s stories, and narrating experiences which they haven`t had access to or experienced themselves. It is a sad situation when you have your own heroes portrayed by outsiders.”  

Finally, what type of film can be described as a trademark Lebogang Rasethaba film?

“I don’t know, I think I would not like to give my films an absolute tag, but if I were I would say something more or less along the lines of altruistic. It is what I hope resonates through in all my work.”