| The Silver Fez | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Lloyd Ross |
| Screenplay by | Rian Malan |
| Produced by | Joëlle Chesselet |
| Cinematography | Lloyd Ross |
| Edited by | Lloyd Ross |
| Music by | Warrick Sony |
Release date |
|
Running time | 83 minutes |
| Country | South Africa |
The Silver Fez is a 2009 South African documentary feature film directed by Lloyd Ross.
The story tells of Kaatji Davids, a house painter who lives in Cape Town. He is very poor, with only an old banjo as a musical instrument, but he and a few close friends dream of beating the wealthy Hadji Bucks, undisputed champion of Cape Malay music. The prize is the Silver Fez, the "Holy Grail" of Cape Town's Islamic subculture. The contest involves thousands of musicians and a wide variety of tunes. [1] [2]
The Silver Fez (the name deriving from the fez, a type of felt hat worn by Malay men in the Cape) is a competition of all-male choirs from the Malay community. [3]
The film explores identity and marginalisation among the Cape Coloureds (of which the Cape Malays are a sub-group): the narrator, Mac, says: "You know, for my people, the so-called Cape coloureds of Cape Town, many of us feel like we are lost in a no-man’s-land between Europe and Asia, unsure of where we fit in". It also shows the feeling of belonging that the men have in the choirs. [3]
The music originates from the days of slavery in South Africa, and the "Nederlandslied", a type of song that combines quarter-note vocal solos found in Arabic music with Western instrumental tunes. The lyrics have stayed the same. [3]
The Silver Fez was directed by Lloyd Ross, who was a composer before moving into filmmaking. He founded the anti-apartheid record label Shifty Records in 1983, and then began making music videos for some of the musicians before starting to make documentary films in the mid 1990s. [2]
The film, 83 minutes long, was made in colour using an HDCAM, and uses both the South African English and Afrikaans languages. [2]
The film was nominated for or won the following awards at various film festivals in 2009:
In 2010, The Silver Fez was nominated for the Golden Horn for Best Documentary Feature at South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTA). [4]
Cape Coloureds are a South African ethnic classification consisting primarily of persons of mixed race African, Asian and European descent.
Coloureds refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia who have ancestry from African, European, and Asian people. The intermixing of different races began in the Cape province of South Africa, with European settlers intermixing with the indigenous Khoi tribes, and Asian slaves of the region. Later various other European nationals also contributed to the growing mixed race people, who would later be officially classified as coloured by the apartheid government in the 1950s.
The fez, also called tarboosh/tarboush, is a felt headdress in the shape of a short, cylindrical, peakless hat, usually red, typically with a black tassel attached to the top. The name "fez" may refer to the Moroccan city of Fez, where the dye to color the hat was extracted from crimson berries. However, its origins are disputed.
Cape Malays also known as Cape Muslims or Malays, are a Muslim community or ethnic group in South Africa. They are the descendants of enslaved and free Muslims from different parts of the world, specifically Indonesia and other Asian countries, who lived at the Cape during Dutch and British rule.
The Kaapse Klopse, formerly known as the Coon Carnival and officially called Cape Town Minstrel Carnival, is a Cape coloured minstrel festival that takes place annually on 2 January in Cape Town, South Africa. It is also referred to as Tweede Nuwe jaar. As many as 13,000 minstrels take to the streets garbed in bright colours, either carrying colourful umbrellas or playing an array of musical instruments. The minstrels are self-organised into klopse. The custom has been preserved since the mid-19th century.
The Dubai International Film Festival was the largest film festival in the Arab region. With particular emphasis on showcasing Arab, Asian, and African cinema, it also helped to develop industry and talent in the region. It was held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Shifty Records was a South African anti-apartheid record label founded by Lloyd Ross and Ivan Kadey in 1982/1983, which existed for around ten years.
François Verster is an independent South African film director and documentary maker.
Annemarie Jacir is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer, and producer.
Garbage Dreams is a 2009 feature length documentary film produced and directed by Mai Iskander. Filmed over the course of four years, Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys growing up in Egypt's garbage village. Garbage Dreams aired on the PBS program Independent Lens for the occasion of Earth Day 2010 and has been screened in many international film festivals.
Oliver Schmitz is a South African film director and screenwriter.
Tokachi Tsuchiya is a film maker. He was born in Kyoto in 1973. In 1997 he began his studies of cinema.
Microphone is a 2010 Egyptian independent film by Ahmad Abdalla about the underground art scene of the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The film received Best Arabic-language film Award from Cairo International Film Festival and Tanit d'Or from Journées cinématographiques de Carthage. In addition to Best Editing Award from Dubai International Film Festival in 2010.
Dylan Valley is a South African filmmaker, born and raised in Cape Town. He has directed work with SABC, Al Jazeera, and independently. He teaches in the television studies department at Wits University.
Izulu Lami, titled My Secret Sky in English, is a 2008 South African film made in the Zulu language. It was directed by Madoda Ncayiyana. It follows the story of two children who travel to the city of Durban and become street kids after their mother dies.
Death of a Japanese Salesman is a 2011 Japanese documentary film written and directed by Mami Sunada about the illness and death of her father, Tomoaki Sunada.
Deon Lotz is a South African film, television, and theatre actor. He is perhaps best known internationally for roles in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and Beauty (Skoonheid). He has appeared in both English- and Afrikaans-language productions.
Philip Miller is a South African composer and sound artist based in Cape Town. His work is multi-faceted, often developing from collaborative projects in theatre, film, video and sound installations.
Felicity Wilcox is an Australian composer and musician.
To Singapore, With Love is a 2013 Singaporean documentary film written and directed by Tan Pin Pin. The film featured interviews with nine Singaporean political dissidents, former activists, and student leaders who fled Singapore from the 1960s to 1980s, living in exile.
Text has been copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. (See talk page)