Seven years after writer Sean Drummond and director Michael Matthews first set out on an 8000km research and development journey around the country, The Be Phat Motel Film Company and Game 7 Films’ Five Fingers for Marseilles, which was a project selected for the 2013 Durban FilmMart (DFM), is taking the next big step to the big screen.
The film, a contemporary South African thriller modelled on the western and played in Sesotho and isiXhosa, with a fully local cast, begins production in the Eastern Cape in July 2016, in association with Stage 5 Films and Above the Clouds.
Once, the young “Five Fingers’ fought for the rural town of Marseilles, against brutal police oppression. Now, twenty years after fleeing in disgrace, freedom-fighter-turned-outlaw Tau (Vuyo Dabula) returns, seeking only peaceful anonymity. Finding the town under vicious new threat, he must choose whether to run again or to reluctantly fight to free it. Will the Five Fingers stand again?
Dabula heads an ensemble cast featuring Thishiwe Ziqubu, Kenneth Nkosi, Mduduzi Mabaso, Lizwi Vilakazi, Kenneth Fok, Anthony Oseyemi and Dean Fourie, with Jerry Mofokeng. Cast by Moonyeenn Lee, the film will look to local Eastern Cape communities for a number of youth and supporting roles.
Five Fingers is Be Phat Motel’s first narrative feature, after international documentary and shorts success. Game 7 Films’ Yaron Schwartzman and Asger Hussain’s credits include Academy award-winning Precious, The Paperboy, and upcoming true-life crime-story 37. Stage 5 Films’ credits include Silwerskermfees-winner Hollywood in my Huis, Unearthed, the upcoming The Whale Caller and the 2016 Durban International Film Festival opening film The Journeymen.
The film was awarded DFM Finance Forum’s “Best South African Film in Development’ in 2013. Indigenous Film Distribution will release it in South Africa in 2017 and XYZ Films will represent the film for North American sales. Five Fingers for Marseilles is made possible with the support of the NFVF and the DTI, with additional services from Dupa Films.
Five Fingers for Marseilles will premiere internationally in early 2017.
