The winner of the Best Short Film award at the inaugural Independent Mzansi
Short Film Festival (IMSFF), was John Trengove’s iBhokhwe (The Goat)
.
The film is a deceptively simple character study of a young Xhosa man who has
just undergone ritual circumcision and waits in a hut in the middle of the Eastern
Cape veld for his grandfather to come and counsel him through the last part of
this important rite of passage. Mysteriously, days pass and his elder does not
turn up, having either been waylaid somehow or abandoned the youngster (the
latter is hinted at though never explicitly stated). Isolated and in pain, the
initiate undergoes an inexplicable, Kafkaesque transformation.
The film had its origins in Trengove’s fascination with this rite of passage, which
he had been researching for a feature film project, The Wound,
currently in development and among the official project selection at the Durban
Film Mart in July where it received the ARTE France International Prize of E6 000
towards its production budget. “I became interested in telling a story about –
not so much the initiation as such – but really a gay coming-of-age story that is
set inside a traditional context. The initiation was very interesting to me
because it deals with issues around masculinity and ideas of what it means to
be a man. So I started doing research into experiences of gay boys who have
gone through the initiation. Then I came across a novel by Thando Mgcolozana,
called The Man Who is Not a Man, specifically about an initiate who
goes through the process. I made contact with Thando and he came on board
as a collaborator on the script for The Wound and I decided that
there was one very strong chapter in the novel that I thought would make a
great short film. I started adapting it and that became iBhokhwe,’
Trengove explains.
Although occupying the same cultural and geographic space as The
Wound, iBhokhwe stands apart from the feature film and, while the short
film is sparse, character-driven and inclined towards portraiture, the feature is a
high-stakes drama that deals with a relationship triangle spiraling out of control.
The subject of both films is not so much the cultural practice of circumcision – this
is just a backdrop for the stories that unfold. Trengove has other things on his
mind. “There is something of the outsider perspective that is always interesting
to me, a kind of a familiar situation seen through the eyes of a marginal
character. What you have with the circumcision is a hyper masculine ritual, a
secret ritual of men. In The Wound it’s depicted through the eyes of
three characters who don’t conform to traditional ideals of masculinity. It’s seen
from a very particular perspective. That’s the only way in which I am actually
interested in making this film. I am not representing a culture, I am not Xhosa, I
am telling a subjective, emotional story.
“It’s a very personal response to what I see happening in Africa, the disturbing
trends towards homophobic attitudes across the continent and locally. One
thing that I find particularly objectionable is that homosexuality is regarded as
“un-African’ or threatens African culture. The film thus begins from the premise
that homoerotic desire is as ancient as African culture, and has always been
there. The story looks at what happens when characters are forced or force
themselves to hide their strongest feelings at all costs.’
iBhokhwe is a co-production by Urucu Media and Cool Take Pictures,
with Elias Ribeiro and Batana Vundla sharing producing duties. Willie Nel shot
the film while the young actor, Thando Mhlontlo, who was approaching his own
initiation at the time the film was made, played the lead role.
