Happiness is a Four-Letter Word - Q&A with Bongiwe Selane

Bongiwe Selane is an award-winning producer with credits behind her that include Culture Shock, the 2013 SAFTA winner for best reality show, Best South African Short Film at DIFF in 2015 for the short film Unomalanga and The Witch. Her producing credits include New Directions – M-Net’s skills-development initiative, which she headed for eight years and which saw the production of over 30 short films across the African continent. She also produced a documentary series called Great Africans for Africa Magic Entertainment. Broadcast in 2014, the series profiled African icons, including Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, Wole Soyinka and Wangari Maathai. Bongiwe is currently producing the NFVF’s Female Only Filmmaker project, a series of short narrative films by women filmmakers. Happiness is a Four-Letter- Word is her first feature film.

In Happiness is A Four Letter Word, Nandi (Mmabatho Montsho) who has just been made a partner of her law firm, is engaged to emerging entrepreneur Thomas. Zaza (Khanyi Mbau) is a trophy wife of the wealthy and successful property developer Bheki. Princess (Renate Stuurman) is the celebrated owner of one of the trendiest art galleries in town, and is living with her sexy and talented boyfriend, Leo. But things aren’t what they seem!

The film is produced by Bongiwe Selane, Junaid Ahmed and Helena Spring and directed by Thabang Moleya. The screenplay was written by Busisiwe Ntintili and Nozizwe Cynthia Jele and filmed in and around Johannesburg during July 2015.

Bongiwe Selane

Happiness is a Four-Letter Word is an incredibly provocative and alluring title. Tell me about it.

The film is based on a novel called Happiness is a Four-Letter Word by Cynthia Nozizwe Jele, which basically offered most of the material for the film. Based on the novel, these strong, empowered and highly individual women find themselves having to negotiate new norms of being upwardly mobile black women in a rapidly changing South Africa. In a time when wealth and position seem to be more important than traditional values, each woman will find out that happiness is not found in a one-size-fits-all box. Only through trial and sacrifice will each friend discover what it is that truly makes them each happy.

What inspired you to produce the film?

The novel won the M-Net literary award in the film category in 2011. This prize is awarded to the novel best suited to screen adaptation. The novel read incredibly visually and was reminiscent of the kind of chick flick I’d seen in films such as Sex and the City, Waiting to Exhale, Think Like a Man etc., but had a local resonance. I think it offered a wonderful alternative to the more common SA film narratives of grit, crime, and the struggle – and offered an alternative, glamorous and beautiful South Africa that hadn’t been seen before on the big screen. It just felt new in a sense that nothing like that had ever been done in the South African film context.

Was it an easy story to bring to the big screen?

I think it was easy and not so easy – easy in that the novel itself read visually and provided great material for a film, but challenging in how that adaptation translated into the visual medium of film. It’s always difficult to stay 100% true to the novel and, as producers, we had to take creative liberties and decide on what needed to be included (or excluded) to make the book filmic. For instance, the novel is a multi-plot story of four friends, but in the film, we decided to combine two characters into one so that we have three characters instead of four. This was a deliberate decision to allow enough screen time for each character and for their stories to unfold in 90 minutes, and also story arcs for their partners.

Did you produce the film with any particular actors in mind?

No. We had a vigorous casting process, which allowed us to see a wide range of talent, and made a decision on the cast based on what they brought to the table. We did, however, make deliberate choices with our male leads and cast outside of SA – Chris Attoh who plays Chris is Ghanaian and Tongai Chirisa, who plays Thomas, is Zimbabwe born, but is based and working in Hollywood. Both bring a wider Pan African and international appeal to the film.

How difficult is it to produce a film in South Africa? What are the challenges?

I don’t think it’s easy – there are certainly some challenges, especially in raising the finance to make a film. It took me four years to make Happiness – a lengthy process not only from a development point of view (raising the money to option the novel and the adaptation process), but also raising enough funding to give justice to the story. But what’s positive now is that there’s a lot of doors opening up for emerging talent (writer, producer and director) particularly within the government structure, such as the NFVF and the DTI’s Black Filmmakers Incentive, and our distributors are slowly but surely seeing the value of local films. These certainly boost the industry.

What do you as a producer look for in a screenplay?

For myself, I look at who this film is talking to -who’s 'the audience' (if I can put it that way) – I think its crucial to write a story with an audience in mind. After all, they are the ones who are going pay to go to watch your film. Second to that is resonance – who will this story touch, appeal to and resonate with? For me a film is a product – it has to be 'manufactured' in such a way that it is consumed by a target audience. And, lastly, I look at the entertainment value of film. For myself, as a producer, the film medium is first and foremost an entertainment medium, and that’s what draws audiences to a film – whatever genre it is, at the end of it, people go watch movies for many reasons, but the top of the list is entertainment.

Your views on the state of the local film and TV industry?

I’m very excited about the state of our industry at the moment. I think we are at a positive and growing place right now and moving in the right direction. Our preoccupation with the legacy or rather struggle narrative is waning a bit as we are recognise that audiences are looking for something more, something fresh, new and positive about South Africa - about the South Africa of today. There’s also a lot of talent and new voices coming up, and I think South Africans are going to be pleasantly surprised by how many South African films will be gracing their screens soon. First-time film producers (like myself) are being given a chance and invested in, and these are positive risks that funders are taking because it’s the only way this industry can grow, the only way that alternative narratives can come out.

Future projects?

I’m currently producing a slate of short films called the Female Only Filmmaker project, which is a development initiative that provides recent female entrants to the industry with the opportunity to make a film in collaboration with other women. Sixteen 24-minute short films have been produced under this initiative, completed in 2014 and 2015 by amazing and talented women filmmakers who I’m certain will only go on to make features and be a force to be reckoned with in African cinema. Some of the shorts have been screened at international film festivals, and won at the Durban International Film Festival. This year, I’ll be calling for scripts for 10 short films to be produced later in 2016, while also developing my next feature film.

Read more about Happiness Is A Four-Letter Word and other new releases at www.writingstudio.co.za