‘The Shaman’s Apprentice’ by Catherine Winter was voted one of the top 3 films by the audience at Encounters 2008. The other two films were ‘Shamiela’s House’ by Robyn Rorke and ‘Zulu Surfriders‘ by Carlos Francisco and Andre Cronje.
The moment the film takes the viewer by the scruff of the neck from the claustrophibia of the city and drops you into the vast countryside, I was hooked. The landscape shots are beautiful, the film unfolds with patience and everything fits together. The story of the artist from the city coming to the harsh world of the semi-desert Karoo to recuperate and learn how to heal herself through nature could have been banal and just another story of yet another urbanite running from the rat race into an overly romanticised countryside. In the hands of Winter, however, the images support the narrative adding depth and uniqueness to Antoinette Pienaar’s story.
On the eighth of August 2008 – months behind us now and on the day that the Beijing Olympics opened in all its splendour – I met with Cathy Winter and spoke to her about ‘The Shaman’s Apprentice’ and her process of filmmaking. Cathy was thoughtful and passionate about filmmaking with a deep respect for the story she tells in the film, and I hope that I have managed to capture this in the interview that follows.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING?
I started out as a radio journalist, and was always a secret writer. This was in the eighties when you had to take sides and having come from an Afrikaner uniformity I had no taste for being a disciplined cadre. So I got involved in the Afrikaans protest music movement (Ek is ‘n bietjie van ‘n baster, ek is Engels en Afrikaans. I was sent to Afrikaans schools, even though my mother spoke English to us at home.) as a strategist and media liaison person. After that I suffered burnout and went to live in Cape Town and the Karoo for a while. I lived in the Karoo for two years and I experienced it as harsh, yet with an incredible gentleness and an incredible holding that allows you to expand. You know, it’s an expansion of your awareness: there’s no white noise that deadens the sound of silence, so you’re able to experience both how small and how huge you are. It’s a gift the Karoo gives you.
It was while I was in the Karoo, in Pearston that I decided to make film my medium. I had also previously done stills photography as a hobby, so I went to Johannesburg to try to put things together.
WHO DO YOU MAKE YOUR FILMS FOR?
I think someone like Nodi (Murphy), who has a placement eye, will be able to tell you who my films are for or who the audience for my films is, but I really make them for myself, to reflect my processes – processes that are also being experienced by my generation and reflect the zeitgeist. And then I am driven to make the films that I make partly because I think that for all of us making films or art there is some hidden need to be recognised.
I am never passionate about a subject unless it can fundamentally change people – and I don’t mean a paradigm shift, I mean a change where something shifts deep inside them – and I seem to have been able to achieve that.
The films I make are not trying to give a voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t have a voice, rather they bring across what the characters can already communicate with their being. Everybody has a voice – my task is to facilitate its expression in my medium.
Oom Johannes
ANTOINETTE HAS A LOT OF ROOM TO TELL HER STORY. WAS SHE CO-DIRECTOR?
No. I brought the film to her within the guidelines of the brief and the pitch I had written and we negotiated the content within that structure. Before making this film I had never worked with a performer before and performers are very conscious of what they’re putting across. As a result there was a lot of negotiation around how things would be said and in the end we really understood each other and I could just say to Antoinette, “I need you to talk about drought as a metaphor for illness,” and she would begin to talk and what she said was perfect. Her style of storytelling is winding, circular, very African – finally getting to the center which is the still point and the narrative arch. It was very difficult to cut down the pieces that she gave me, as each was a film in its own. But I think Tonia and I made the cuts and the transitions quite seamlessly.
It was very interesting for Antoinette and me to work together and we both learnt from this interaction – we had agreed to work together to get what we both wanted into the film. I did try to interview her, but it didn’t work and I had to let go of control. As a director I am used to guiding people into a place where I want them to be, so this was challenging with someone who knew where she wanted to be and could deliver it with so much considered prose. On the first day I was extremely nervous because I thought, this has to be perfect for all of us. And it was!
Feedback from people who are trained in theatre is that they can tell when she’s performing and when she’s unrehearsed. That piece where she talks about the rain and the clouds, e.g. they are able to tell that she has switched into a rehearsed piece – it is indeed taken from one of Antionette’s stage pieces.
Antoinette Pienaar
THE RHYTHM OF THE COUNTRY SHOTS WITH STORY ARE SO PERFECTLY MATCHED. HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO TELL THE STORY SO HARMONIOUSLY?
The entire process took a year. And a lot of praying and dreaming. A film always reveals itself to me.
I began by first shooting the landscape as a character in its own right and then started to include Antoinette and Oom Johannes. This way of working allowed me to find my film style first. Then, knowing what the content’s going to be and how it marries the images, I brought in a camera person to shoot the interviews (narrative) and some additional images. As a director, when you’re shooting the interviews, you’re focusing on so much and you need someone else to take care of the technicalities.
I went up there by myself for two or three weeks at a time and I would shoot during that time. I’m an indulgent filmmaker – I don’t make money from my films and I don’t care if they make money. I wouldn’t shoot every day I was there, but at the end of the shoot I had 26 tapes. It’s very difficult for me to reign myself in as a director – it’s all or nothing for me – so I can’t be a bread-and-butter filmmaker. I want to show all the subtle layers in the story, and it doesn’t work for me if I am not passionately involved.
While I was there I did a lot of things with Antoinette and Oom Johannes as a participant observer. I gathered wood and water, picked and ground herbs, and had long conversations with them at our evening meals.
The Storm Arrives
WHO WAS THE OTHER CAMERA PERSON YOU USED?
I was very nervous about who to take along as a camera person. It couldn’t be someone with strict professional boundaries; it had to be someone who could be flexible with the characters – feel them out and fall in love with them as I had.
I found Chris Wessels and it just had to be Chris. Everything becomes liquid when Chris picks up the camera. He has an incredible sense of light and he paints beautifully with it. I was ecstatic when he was keen to do it. And, I must admit, slightly intimidated by his skill and talent.
‘The Healing Power of Nature’ series has a more classical style, but I got away with the handheld elements because, I think, of the rustic environment and because of our (Chris and my) ability to use it very subtly. I think knowing tai chi helped both us with our handheld movements. The film is a careful blend of handheld and tripod work.
So we shot the interviews on two cameras with Chris doing the close-ups on Antoinette. The opening sequence and the general landscape shots are mostly my shots, except for the backlit windmill and the time lapses of the clouds, which were also Chris’s ideas. The shots around the yard are by both of us. I like working with people who have their own style, but are able to blend it in with my style of storytelling and the characters’ styles.
I also told Chris what Tonia liked, as an editor. He had also seen other work of hers. What we all had in common was subservience to the story, which Antoinette and Oom Johannes shared with us. As a result everything flowed beautifully within the initial holding structure.
Windmill by Chris Wessels
YOU LIST A FEW ARCHIVE SOURCES IN THE CREDITS – WHERE DID YOU USE THE ARCHIVE?
The archive footage I used in the film includes Johannesburg traffic scenes that I got from Matthys Mocke; ‘Pasella’ footage from SABC 2 and ‘Die Burger’ archive I used at the beginning of the film to show Antoinette as a performer.
I like using archive, I like hauling out archive to show that this stuff was always there. That very often we are covering old ground, old truths, but hopefully with new vision. My first film, ‘My African Mother’, e.g. was made almost entirely from found footage.
WHO DID YOU EDIT WITH?
I am not one of those directors who leaves the editor alone to get on with things. I work very closely with the editor, even though there is no real budget to do so. The editor on ‘The Shaman’s Apprentice’ was Tonia Selley, an editor who is able to be true to the director’s vision. Ronelle Loots had spoiled me with ‘My African Mother’ – it was refreshing to work with an editor who was able to say to me, “What do you want to say?” I don’t think I’d like to work in any other way.
I think Tonia is also able to do this because she’s a creative person too, but she gives a lot of expression to her creativity through her songwriting and singing. So she is able to listen to why you want to do something and she works at making it work. She’s also very quick, and I think her musicianship brings an added dimension to the rhythm of the cut.
Tonia and I got along very well and she gave me what I wanted. It was only at the beginning of the film where Tonia wanted to get out of the room where Antoinette and Oom Johannes are sitting, but I insisted that we stay inside for longer; and at the end of the film we argued about the translation of a phrase, but you have a little of that with everyone. We were both very happy with it when we saw it screened on SABC 3 and at Encounters – a rare thing, as one often then notices things that could have been done differently when you watch it in a public forum.
Tonia Selley
HOW DID ANTOINETTE AND OOM RESPOND TO THE FILM?
(Laughs) Oom and Antoinette stopped smoking when they saw themselves in the initial footage. Oom Johannes didn’t want his mother to see him constantly sucking his pipe … When I went back there with Chris they had both stopped smoking.
They loved the film and Antointte thanked me for creating a powerful piece that really shifts people.
Oom Johannes finds what I do bullshit, it has no place in his world – so it was difficult working with him. He also took anyone looking at him through the tight focus of a lens as an invitation to do the same and he would start sprouting forth about your deepest processes … both Chris and I experienced this. But once they had seen the finished film, he understood what I do a little more.
WHAT IS THE STATUS OF DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING IN SOUTH AFRICA?
I can’t speak for other filmmakers, but I feel that until we can negotiate copyright of our work for ourselves – possibly have a system like the musicians do with SAMRO (Southern African Music Rights Organisation), it is very difficult to make a living. The options at the moment are pitching a series the SABC accepts or opting for foreign funding and the international festival market. Having said this, there are increasing opportunities for filmmakers.
I think the fact that there are so many opportunities for filmmakers at the moment has a lot to do with Steven (Markowitz) and Nodi (Murphy) building a documentary audience to which our broadcasters have responded. These opportunities have of course also been born out of the ICASA’s (Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) demand for local content from the broadcasters and consequently from documentary filmmakers.
Also, the way Encounters has been taken forward by Nazeer (Ahmed) and Mandisa (Zitha) and the other festivals that have popped up. They laid the foundation and we wouldn’t be able to do what we do as documentary filmmakers if not for what they have done. I think their role is hugely underestimated. They gave me a big break through Encounters with my first film, ‘My African Mother’ and for that I am eternally grateful.
Where would you usually meet directors from other countries if you didn’t go to those countries? We can do that through the local festivals, which have created a networking paradise for documentary makers. We shouldn’t take these festivals for granted.
Windmill
Interviewed by Tina-Louise Smith
