Jann Turner’s first feature film - WHITE WEDDING - was a hit in South Africa in 2009 and releases internationally in 2010. NYU Film School graduate Turner is an award winning film maker and journalist who has made hundreds of hours of television. Amongst other things she spent two years covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for SABC TV's Special Report and was a co-creator of the award winning TV dramas MZANSI and HARD COPY. She is also the author of the novels HEARTLAND, SOUTHERN CROSS, HOME IS WHERE YOU FIND IT and THE DIGNITY CHANNEL. Jann is currently in post production on her latest film PARADISE STOP.

South African star rising Talent poised for breakout.
By KEVIN KRIEDEMANN

Deryck Broom

Broom will go down in history as the director of South Africa's first stereoscopic 3D feature film, "The Lion of Judah," which is also the country's first computer-generated animated movie. Retelling the Easter story from the perspective of the animals, "Lion of Judah" is set for a 2010 release in both the States and South Africa. He's written the first draft of the Christmas-themed prequel "Bethlehem or Bust" for Animated Family Films, which looks set to start production this year. He's also prepping an animated series for toddlers that he'll take to Mipcom later this year. Look out for two more South African animated features this year: Duncan MacNeillie's "Jock of the Bushveld" and Wayne Thornley's "Zambezia."

Genevieve Hofmery

Hofmeyr, from the shingle Moonlighting, is one of South Africa's most respected producers, with a track record that runs from bringing in "Invictus" ahead of schedule and under budget to line producing "Amelia," "Catch a Fire" and "Racing Stripes" and producing "Skin," "24: Redemption," "10,000 B.C." and "Blood Diamond." She's currently in production on "Death Race 3" for Universal, with a number of other projects in the pipeline. Hofmeyr's positive about 2010: "The global industry is depressed, but as a result of that it's even more important for producers to look for better value destinations like South Africa."

Jann Turner

Turner's bio reads like a movie plot. She's the daughter of antiapartheid activist Rick Turner, who was assassinated in 1978, and Barbara Follett, whose second husband Ken is the bestselling novelist. A novelist herself, Turner returned to South Africa to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where she testified with her family, but no one confessed to her father's murder. Her first film, "White Wedding," is a playful multicultural romantic comedy and a hit in South Africa. The Little Film Co. is handling sales on the pic at the European Film Market. Her second film, comedy thriller "Paradise Stop," is in post-production.

Lance Samuels

Production shingle Out of Africa, founded by Samuels, has racked up an impressive portfolio that includes the Emmy-winning "Generation Kill," Sophie Okonedo starrer "Mrs. Mandela" and "The Prisoner." This year, watch out for the releases of four South African films he produced: "The Bang Bang Club," with Ryan Phillippe and Malin Akerman; "Africa United," a South Africa/Rwanda/U.K. co-production; "Lucky," an extension of Avie Luthra's BATFA nominated short film; and "Schuks Tshabalala's Survival Guide to South Africa 2010," with South African box office phenomenon Leon Schuster.

Nico Dekker

Dekker leads Cape Town Film Studios, a $56 million Hollywood-style soundstage complex on the outskirts of Cape Town, which will open its first phase in the first half of this year. That will see four large soundstages, with gantries up to 49 feet high, support buildings, production offices and film manufacturing workshops, covering 183,000 square feet. "Seventy percent will be finished by June," says studio CEO Dekker, "with the balance completed before the end of next year. It will be the first of its kind in Africa."

Patrick Mofokeng

In "Invictus," Mofokeng played Nelson Mandela's taller bodyguard, Linga Moonsamy, but watch out for him this year in "Master Harold … and the Boys," where he's in almost every scene as a foil to Freddie Highmore and Ving Rhames. Director Loni Price raves about the performance: "In a weird way he is the heart of the movie; he's an undeniable talent." Mofokeng, who won the 2007 South African Film and Television Award for best actor, will also appear in Stefanie Sycholt's soccer-themed "Themba."

Tony Kgoroge

As the fiery Jason Tshabalala in "Invictus," Kgoroge made an impression, and now his career is revving up, with co-starring roles in "Skin" and "The First Grader," just wrapped in Kenya and directed by Justin Chadwick ("The Other Boleyn Girl"). He's represented by Moonyeen Lee & Associates in South Africa.

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‘White Wedding’ Awakening

By Jann Turner (director of "White Wedding," South Africa's official entry for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language)
(from the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival)

"When we first saw you, we saw white!" Kenny and Raps confessed this to me midst gales of laughter about a year after we started working together on "Isidingo," South Africa's first post-apartheid soap. Kenneth Nkosi and Rapulana Seiphemo were acting on the series, I was one of the directors, and it was while we were toiling together in the soap mine that we became friends. Ours is a relationship of deep trust and loyalty, one of the most important in my life. It's from the obstacles and issues that we've confronted through our triangular, multi-cultural and multi-racial friendship that our first feature film comes. More than a decade after that conversation about my whiteness, the three of us sat down together to write the script for "White Wedding."

"White Wedding" is a comic, romantic take on people encountering one another with all their prejudices in play and being forced by circumstance to find affinities that are liberating and humanizing.

The three of us grew up during apartheid and in very different worlds. I was raised in a family of political activists in white, suburban Cape Town, and later - after my father was assassinated by the Security Police - in England. Kenny and Raps were raised in the khasi (township/ghetto), they are both Soweto born and bred, and they grew up with the crude brutality of racism in all facets of their lives. Our early careers were focused on work that related to our changing society, with subject matter that was often of necessity very dark and heavy. "White Wedding" marked a significant departure, and the move into comedy was both liberating and exciting for us. South Africans have repeatedly called the film "refreshing" because it shows our country as it is now and not as it was.

Not that we should forget our past - far from it - all three of us are formed and scarred by it. But I firmly believe that our painful memories should be balanced with joy in the new nation we have created.

South Africa has 11 official languages. Most people here speak in a seamless mix of several and often switch from one to another without skipping a beat. We use language to exclude and include one another, and in the writing of "White Wedding" we felt the dialogue had to be spoken in the languages of the characters - that is Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Afrikaans and even French.

We cast a Xhosa actress for the role of Ayanda, the Xhosa bride whose mother is not so sure about the "uncut" (uncircumcised) Zulu man her husband is intent on marrying. For Rose, the lost English hitchhiker, we felt that we had to have an English actress, someone who could bring to the part the surprise and amazement that foreigners feel when they encounter our beautiful, complicated, crazy country.

I printed up a set of pictures of the hot, young British actresses listed on IMDb, and both Kenny and Raps pointed to Jodie Whittaker as the girl they wanted for Rose. So I went to London to find her. Incredibly, we got her. Jodie instantly became part of our family and her professionalism and energy contributed to the wonderful atmosphere on set.

Above all, "White Wedding" is a family enterprise. With Ken Follett (my step-father) as executive director, and close friends and colleagues in the cast and crew, we had a team that was relaxed, hard working and efficient. We shot the film in 18 days, with a budget of under a million dollars.

We premiered the film in Johannesburg last April, and our opening weekend pulled double the box office taken by "Tsotsi" on its first South African outing. The response from local audiences has been amazing. I've stood at the back of the theater holding tight to Raps' and Kenny's hands as the audience rose to its feet stomping and shouting and applauding, and I've danced in the aisles with strangers as the credits rolled.

We tried to make the film true to the way we think, speak and behave - and the result is a madcap, multilingual adventure with many layers of humor and irony. Very much like living in South Africa today.

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