South
African Twist movie Project: 1000 pledges?
Even tough the movie-industry is booming in Cape Town because
of foreign productions, it is an understatement to say that
it is 'difficult' for South African filmmakers to raise
funds for new films.
That's why Cape Town director Tim Greene made a plan under
the credo 'who doesn't have money has to be smart' to raise
one million Rand for his new project 'Twist'.
Greene released a thousand shares of R1000 looking for buyers
to get the necessary one million Rand together to make a
South African funded movie. "With many people and a
lot of faith I will succeed to collect this amount of money",
said the self-confident Greene. "This project is suitable
for the shares because it is a story everybody understands.
I feel that there is a need for this kind of local movie-projects
in Cape Town."
The movie Greene wants to make is based on Charles Dickens'
classic story about the orphan Oliver Twist. In Greenes'
version Oliver is a street kid in Cape Town. Greene tells
that it was easy to keep the original storyline in shape.
"I love the story and when I was thinking about this
project I read the book once again. During my readings I
saw Oliver Twist walking through Cape Town because the original
story has so much in common with the situation in South
Africa nowadays."
The filmmaker came up with the idea when he saw a poster
about a streetkid-project saying: 'If Cape Town is the Mother
City, why does she care so less about her children?' "At
that time I thought: I want to do something for those kids.
Let's make a movie about them."
Besides the one million from the shares Greene needs another
two million to get the movie on the big screen. He thinks
that large companies will step in "when they see the
project comes from the ground".
Greene produced his first short film 'Corner Caffie' in
1994, which made huge impact in South Africa. After this
he made several music videos and commercials. In 1998 he
made another short movie: Kap 'an, Driver. In 2003 Greene
finished shooting the 13 part drama series Tsha Tsha for
the SABC.
The outspoken, undertaking filmmaker thinks that his Twist-movie
comes at the right time. "On this very moment there
is a trend of good low-budget films from cities in second
world countries like Rio de Janeiro and Mexico-city. With
this project Cape Town could enter this scene and puts itself
on the map."
I'm confident that I will succeed making this project a
success. It's hard to get something from the ground, but
when we manage to produce a South African movie with the
support of hundreds of like-minded people the satisfaction
is even bigger."
After we visited Tim's 500th pledge party in March- in
May Tim Greene received his thousandth pledge, completing
his search for the one million Rand to produce Twist. Greene
is now busy shooting his movie
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