Production company Bouffant has a new playground called Fringe, which has been set up to do integrated and experiential work. One of its directors, John Trengove, who has won an impressive slew of awards, indicates that it’s far from an experiment.
Some of Trengove’s accolades include his miniseries, Hopeville, which won the Rose d’Or for best drama and mini series at the Rose d’Or global entertainment television festival in Switzerland in 2010. The same series was nominated for an International Emmy in the same year and was made into a feature released in 2010. The feature won Best Film at the 2011 Fespaco festival which celebrates African film and was nominated in nine categories at the Africa Movie Academy Awards.
Locally, Trengove’s short films for ABSA’s L’Atelier art programme won gold for direction in the Experiential category at the 2010 Loeries. The series for L’Atelier revolves around four artists who were each asked to design artwork using the words “creativity takes courage’ and have them tattooed on their bodies. The films capture the essence of the artists’ characters. Using consumer cameras and cell phones, Trengove spent a night filming each of them, from dusk to dawn.
“It’s the most creative freedom I’ve had on any job. As the night wore on, the more interesting the visuals became,’ he says. “We also left the artists alone with the camera to interview themselves.’
Essentially these films are two-minute portraits of the artists – intense; revealing; capturing the artists’ insecurities and ultimately their courage. It’s a courageous series in itself as it candidly embraces so much about the artistic dilemma of being true to oneself.
Trengove hails from an artistic background as he trained in drama at the University of Cape Town. During that time he became interested in directing which led him to enroll at New York University where he became a film graduate. His work spans narrative and experimental film and aside from writing his next feature script, Trengove is branching out even more into short form as he believes: “short form gives you the opportunity to push the boat out technically and conceptually.’
Trengove is not unfamiliar with long form either. Part of Hopeville’s appeal, he believes, is magic realism that makes the series a little otherworldly and ultimately universal.
“At the Emmy’s people said it set itself apart,’ says Trengove. The Rose d’Or award was particularly meaningful as the festival looks specifically for atypical productions. “While filming Hopeville, if anything felt too real, we moved away from it.’
By Anton Crone
