I Love You Nikita will screen at the Straight Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival
*How did you get into making films?
I've known I wanted to write since I was ten. Growing up in an underdeveloped country with one TV station really limits your world-view to the extent that one never quite knows what to do with their gifts. I specialised in poetry, wrote some prose, fiction and a bit of journalism later although I always knew I was more into the creative side of things.
After moving to South Africa I met a girl, a poet who was studying theatre and sort of got into a production (’And Now We Speak’ by Cletus Moyo) which required poets to write and perform a play. She turned out to be gay but I found myself doing more productions after that, a scene in a short film as well.
My biggest shot came when I moved back to Zimbabwe. My best friend Leroy, who plays Conrad in ‘I Love You, Nikita’ knew all this,one day he was in a production that needed an actor for the lead, he threw my name into the hat, the guys gave me an audition maybe more from curiosity if an award-winning author could handle the screen. I got a National Arts Merit Award nomination for the role and figured I had a strong passion for film. I did whatever work I could find and developed my skills on both sides of the camera. Now here we are.
*What inspired you to make your movie?
Life in Zimbabwe hasn't been easy for a long time. We had one president for thirty-seven years and he didn't leave on his own accord; the military had to ‘intervene’. As a creative, one is burdened with a moral choice in such times: how does one use their gift to be... relevant.
‘I Love You Nikita’ started out as a piece of protest theatre. The first ‘Canto’, ‘Nikita’s Wedding’ was a commentary on how our levels of education do not reflect upon the life we live. This is a place where over 90% of people are unemployed despite their learning; the unemployment rate is just about at par with literacy so something is wrong.
Alas, writers get carried away with pens. I thought it was too short to put on stage so I developed the script. ‘Canto 2’ tells the story of how they met, And 3 resolves the story. I was well aware that I might have to produce the film myself so I wasn't going to worry about writing something sane, I just wanted to have fun and write a film that would fuck with your mind in a fantastic way. So my script, my budget (part of it, Dorcas Gwata helped out a lot) and I was directing despite my best attempts not to. I was well on my way to make an art house film, a rare occurrence in our part of the world.
Despite all the hardships, being a first time director, budget and a crawling industry, the team inspired me to push on. Everyone loved the script and that's all you can ask for in a team.
It gets weird for me now, watching Conrad and Nikita, they have a special relationship almost as intense as one I had with someone who's gone now, but we were not as brave as these characters. I suppose we have superheroes on our screens because the people who create them are weak. Still, I relate strongly to Conrad right now.
*How has your style evolved?
When I started out making shorts they were always radical. I'm trying to find the line between anesthetic and function but I'm gaining more confidence in madness because of this film. Because of the budget constrains we could have the footage edited and coloured long before the next shot so I got to analyze it, a lot. That taught me not to worry too much about the script and the Floorplan, I'm more concerned about the beginning and the end, how are we doing at each level, my style is more result-oriented. Sure I hate to see actors skipping my meticulously-crafted lines, but if they know what's important in a scene, know which lines to hit and it looks great, I can live with it. You can't imagine it all, but if you know the important bits, listen to suggestion and the organic flow of things, you might surprise yourself.
Stepping into the director’s shoes from the actor’s helps. Like Regina King said in an interview with Trevor Noah; as an actor you know how a director can rub you up the wrong way so that's one thing you know not to do.
*Tell us any strange or funny stories while making the film?
I was supposed to play the lead in the stage version against Lady Tshawe who plays Nikita in the first part. After I went over the lines I decided they were too much for me. Leroy liked the script so I let him suffer for his bad choice in friends. He aced it actually.
Renne Seckel who did the SFX makeup couldn't make it on set for the final scene. She wasn't too far from location actually so when we were about an hour from the scene where Leroy shows up with a busted nose, he drove to her to sort that out. We needed some stuff from the supermarket so he passed by after he was done. Some people screamed when he walked onto set, I laugh to imagine what was going through everyone's nose when he was just minding his business with his shopping cart.
Also, in the last scene when Tom (Daniel Rodrigues) and Lolita (Linda Nyauchi) fall, they actually fell. Onto a dumbell. She broke her ass. That's not funny.
*The Misrule Film Movement & Pink8 manifesto bring what to mind?
Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy!
*What can we expect from your next film?
I'm a big Monty Python fan. It will be something completely different.
