Set for theatrical release this August, which also happens to be Women’s Month, director Uga Carlini’s hybrid feature documentary Alison, is a tale of courage and the resilience of the human spirit.
Alison reflects on the events that took place in December 1994 when two men raped, stabbed and disembowelled Alison Botha after they abducted her from outside her home in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa.
Botha was left for dead on that horrific night, but she defied death and has lived to tell her story, using her trauma, and triumph over it, to empower others. More than 20 years after the attack, Botha shares with audiences her thoughts on being your own hero, how trauma is on-going and how she manages, against the odds, to keep it at bay.
Published in 1998 by Penguin SA, Botha’s best-selling book, I Have Life, has remained on the the publisher’s bestsellers list since its release, and has been translated into seven languages. Botha was also, reportedly, the first-ever South African to publicly speak out about being a rape victim, and has since become a well-respected motivational speaker.
The film is written, directed and produced by Uga Carlini, the founder and owner of Fish Hoek-based production company Towerkop Creations – a film company that specialises in female driven heroine stories –who says that she knew she wanted to tell this story after she was left feeling captivated, empowered and inspired after first listening to Botha speak more than a decade ago: “In 1999, soon after I read Alison’s book, she came to do a talk at my old high school… There, I experienced the gift, bravery and the honesty, of this incredible human being for the first time myself and was privileged to see, with my own eyes, how she rippled through everyone else who was there to see and hear her – to leave us inspired and better human beings. We need more of these stories.”
Carlini set about telling Botha’s story with a promo – funded by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), which was shot in 2014, “…with the help and forever deep gratitude of the NFVF and my dedicated crew and cast, and all the silent heroes who helped us make it happen and gave us gear and studios for free – Media Film Services, Stratosphere and Visual Impact,” she says. The promo eventually gave the project the momentum and funding it needed in order to shoot the feature film version and cameras started rolling in August 2015, with primary shooting lasting five weeks.
Carlini decided to tell Botha’s story using a hybrid style of storytelling – combining elements of documentary and narrative filmmaking – which has recently been increasing in popularity. A style which she says was chosen to give audiences the raw facts as a documentary would, while still entertaining in a way that would attract larger audiences.
“Visually, it employs the same kind of planning, incredible creatives, story scripting around the structure etc. – not the dialogue, as obviously that remains authentic – as one would in fiction,” she explains. “Also when it comes to audiences, unfortunately documentaries as a genre are reserved to a very specific, limited audience, and seeing that we are rolling out at Nu Metro cinemas for women’s month, I need to make sure my audiences know that there is as much here for them, except for the obvious, that one can expect from a fiction level film, as well as a non-fiction film. My plan and drive was always to offer them the best of both worlds on screen.”
Cinematographer Georgia Court made use of the Red Dragon 4K due to the intense CGI and animation that needed to be carried out in post. “We knew that most of this film’s hard work was going to happen in post and that the Red Dragon was going to give us the best chance to have the canvas in place so we can make it all happen then,” says Carlini.
DOP Court adds that, with budget constraints, shooting on the Red Dragon also allowed her to complement the lens package they could afford with her own set of Samyang (Canon mount) Cine lenses and kit, which proved to be helpful and resourceful in terms of lighting: “I have a five-way Interfit Cool light that I combine with a photographic silver umbrella so that I can wrap light around the face and select the intensity of the light and swivel the position of shadows around a face. This I used as key light for all the interviews. In my ‘make up kit’ I had Ice Lights, small white light torches that I could gel to get a spot of red or blue light, cut crystals, film dust, glitter, fairy lights – anything I could use to create a little something extra in the shot.”
The film employs stylistic elements that reference fairy tales; Carlini says she chose to incorporate these as she views Botha’s story as a contemporary, true-life fairy tale, not only encompassing lessons to be learned but also a somewhat magical component: “This contemporary real-life fairy tale has more than just its moral or ethical undercurrent and lessons to be learned, but like the original versions of fairy tales – as written down by the Brothers Grimm in their adult versions in the 1800s before it became sanitised, reworked versions for children – it is full of macabre and gruesome twists between the magic and miracles. Evil tried very hard that night to destroy Alison for keeps. It failed. And it failed for many reasons. Partly because of Alison, partly because of the incredible, heroic individuals that crossed her path that night and in the days that followed the vicious attack, and partly because of the unexplained. The miracles if you may, the magic if you must! This fairy tale is real. There are monsters, princes, princesses and they give the stereotypes of what we’ve been led to believe is the norm, a run for their money.”
The film’s cast, in addition to Botha, includes Christia Visser, Zak Hendrikz, De Klerk Oelofse and Francois Maree. Alison is made in association with kykNET Films, the Department of Trade and Industry (dti), the NFVF and Waterfront Film Studios. The film is distributed by Black Sheep Films.
Alison releases at Nu Metro Cinemas on 12 August.
