sms sugarman

Arayan Kaganof (AKA Ian Kerkhof) maakte enige tijd geleden de unieke speelfilm SMS Sugar Man. Indertijd de eerste speelfilm geheel op mobiele telefoon opgenomen, waarbij traditionele opnamemethodes overboord werden gezet en de cameravoering door de akteurs zelf werd gedaan.
Opmerkelijk is dat in deze film alle thema's uit Kaganofs werk samen komen en de film een diep emotionele lading geven.

"Johannesburg – an evil, ugly city on a Christmas Eve. This is the turf of the lonely and the damned and no more damned can they be than Sugar man (Kaganof) cruising the streets in his Valiant ‘66, continually on his cell phone, peddling his girls, white and Asian, to wealthy black punters. This tongue in cheek inversion of the apartheid-years scenario of Afrikaans business men popping off to homelands to sample black girls is delivered with ironic force. From hotel to hotel to palatial apartment, the girls and he journey like Joseph and Mary looking for a manger. The process of the night will awaken something in Sugar man that will be born on Christmas Day, witnessed by no Wise Men nor sheep and cows but witnessed instead, by those who, like him were lost. Strangely romantic, consciously transgressive and aesthetically audacious – shot on a battery of cell phones – the film is in addition a homage to Jean Luc Godard’s Alphaville. A checkered production history, plagued by disagreements between director and producer, almost accepted for Cannes but rejected after Kaganof refused to institute alterations, insisted on by the Cannes selectors, the film is destined to share the same floor as Citizen Kane and El Topo in the great Cinematheque Hotel of the Akashic Records."
(Trevor Steele-Taylor)

watch the film:
www.smssugarman.com