After a lot of efforts by several people programmer Gertjan Zuilhof finally got his visum for Angola. His filmmaker Kevin Everson however did not get one. Zuilhof decided to cut his stay short, but to go anyway.
When I look back on it I guess I did not come well prepared to Angola. Yes, I knew that the country had been in colonial and civil wars for almost half a century, but did not really realize what that would mean for the present daily life. I also knew that outside powers had jumped on the resources like oil and diamonds, but did not have a real clue about what that would mean for the every day economy. One step out of the airport helped me out of my dream. The first and last taxi driver I would see that week (there are no taxi's in Luanda, the capital of Angola, because nobody can afford them) asked me my budget for that week to bring me to my hotel. A hotel I intended to leave after the first day anyway because the rates were higher than in Cannes or Dubai.
Tundra in Luanda, Angola
I arrived in Luanda after three months of traveling through Africa, so the muddy roads, the persistant hustlers and the smelly slums did not really surprise me, but the local economy did. Luanda is a boom town, an El Dorado for some and a place to barely survive for most. There is no taxi driver in the world who would not be willing to lower his price if he has no other client. So I went to have a coffee and hoped the driver would come up with a better price after a while. I learned a lesson about the Angolan economy, because the driver had more patience than me. But I was more lucky. Basically I had one good contact in Luanda, film and television maker Francesco Botelho, and it was him who knocked on the window of the coffee place. He was there to pick up a friend. What was I doing there? I told him him about the taxi and he smiled. Welcome to Angola.
Film and TV director Alberto Botelho, Luanda, Angola
He gave me a ride (and many rides would follow that week, thanks Francesco) and knew a cheaper hotel close to the airport. The hotel turned out to be in the middle of a bad slum and still asked 200 $ a night for a room. By then my knowledge of the Angolan economy was already that advanced that I realized that I had no other choice. Luanda is the most expensive city for foreigners to live in in the world and now I understood why. Most local people do not take part in that economy. They endlessly walk the street to sell a few things. Walking sellers they are called. Zungueiras.
Zungueira (walking seller) at the Marginal Waterfront Boulevard in Luanda, Angola
Most African films play in a kind of well to do middle class and they tell television soap kind of stories, but in Angola they have a kind of slum genre. The films are quite violent, make use of the photogenic slum locations and have their share of drug and sex. I saw one that made fun of this genre in a quite bizar way and if I can get hold of the filmmaker and can convince him that subtitles are really needed, I might be able to show the movie in Rotterdam. But I can not promiss it yet. The kind and resourceful Botelho, by all spoken to by his last name, was already a television director when he was barely twenty, showed me around in Luanda and invited me on his sets. He shot his weekly soap and during the weekend he shot a part of a movie he made with television equipment and television actors but outside of television production.
Director Alberto Botelho, in chair, going over the script
The movie he was working on is called
Os Emplastros (something like the useless ones) and is a social comedy with several characters that have a war background and are now no longer needed. The shoot went smooth and in good atmosphere. Some people had to wait half a day for a bit of screentime but nobody complained.
Cast waiting for their turn on gallery
Other than with his television show Botelho shot the scenes in a real apartment (that of his parents in law) and on everybodies day off and in that sense it was a real independent production.
The young Botelho is clearly a very experienced director
All in all there was quite some crew in and around the apartment, but he had everything under control in a relaxed way. Later, during a television shoot, I saw how he commanded and woke up a lazy and distracted part of the technical crew, with just a few lines. He did not pay attention to them anymore after that and it was also not needed.
Comedy acting in Emplastros
Yes, the film had clear comedy elements and they were even more clear in Botelho’s weekly soap.
Alberto Botelho in his sitcom set
Botelho, who was educated in South-Africa, developed a system to shoot the soap that was new for Angola and will be practiced in other parts of the world. He shoots the drama like a live show with several camera’s and edits in a mobile studio on the spot and so saves himself and his boss a lot of time. Time that can be used for having a decent lunch for example, because Botelho likes his breaks and he treats his crew well. That’s why he hardly has to raise his voice.
Catering for Sitcom in old Cinema, Luanda, Angola
Thanks to Botelho I met a lot of other people, like most of the local filmmakers and his mother in law, who roasted fresh fish on the balcony during the film shoot and gave me my best meal in Africa.