Over the course of the last five months SMS Sugar Man, first shot in December 2005, is finally reaching audiences and has premiered in Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Edinburgh , where it was screened at the Africa in Motion film festival. SMS Sugar Man will be available on DVD in December.
The film was held back from release by a bitter dispute between director Aryan Kaganof and production company DV8 Films.
According to an article by Mick Raubenheimer which appeared in The Times (23 Nov 08), its release was going to be extensive, intending to traverse several media simultaneously: the Internet, big screen via Ster-Kinekor, introductory short episodes via purchases of the Sony-Ericsson W900i model used in filming, and DVD.
SMS Sugar Man follows the titular pimp and his three Sugars — Deja Bernhardt as Selene, Leigh Graves as Grace and Samantha Rocca as Anna — as they journey into the depths of Christmas Eve, an evening that will prove pivotal in all their lives.
“Erotically charged, tragic and fresh in a compelling way, the upside-down Christmas fable of SMS Sugar Man is utterly unique in the world of cinema,” writes Raubenheimer.
“Legendary filmmaker Peter Whitehead (Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London, The Fall) calls it a masterpiece, and local critic Trevor Steel-Taylor says: ‘The film is destined to share the same floor as Citizen Kane and El Topo in the great Cinematheque Hotel of the Akashic Records.’
“On the state of SA cinema, Kaganof says: ‘While the films are all in English, we are still making colonised films, using the colonial idiom of Hollywood to further distance ourselves from who we are. The sorry state of South African cinema reveals the sorry truth about post-apartheid South Africa. We are not liberated. Not by a long shot.’”
For the full text of the article visit http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Insight/Article.aspx?id=890355
