Lodi Matsetela is a former copywriter cum a seasoned scriptwriter, director and a partner in Puo Pha Productions with Makgano Mamabolo. She has worked as a writer on many award-winning South African TV-series. She is the co-creator of the popular TV-series Society, and the director of the short film BFF (Best Friends Forever). Puo Pha Productions has worked with all South African broadcaster, has made the leap into features. With a couple scripts in development the company is in the process of producing another installment of Society for SABC1. Lodi, who is currently pursuing a Masters in film at Howard University in Washington DC, is a member of the newly formed Parallel Film Collective. She tweets under the handle @Letjatji.

What is your first film memory?

I remember going to the drive in with my parents. All 7 of us (5 kids and the parents) squashed into the Cressida station wagon, my brother and sister and I already in our PJs. Smarties melting in my hands. I remember watching The Gods Must be Crazy and being in stitches (how little I knew), and Dirty Dancing (although I don’t think I’ve ever watched it to the end, I always fell asleep). I remember being forced by our mother to watch the Roots film series and in return we’d get to watch a film of our own choosing, which would normally be some  80s B-grade masquerading as A-grade drivel like Rambo or The Running Man.

Why did you decide to become a filmmaker?

I didn’t decide to be a filmmaker, I wanted to be a storyteller. Film is an outlet for me. It could have been journalism, novels or plays, but it ended up being film. I went to the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg, where I did Drama, which must have influenced my choice. It might change, who knows? Life is so unpredictable, but right now, this is the path I’ve chosen.

Which film do you wish you had made?

I wish I’d made  Biutiful by Alejandro Inarritu. I think he’s a Kubrick in the making. His films take my breath away. Mostly because of the dense story, and how he seamlessly weaves them together. The global social commentary. I’m glad that the machine that is Hollywood can foster such storytellers. I wish I’d made Touki Bouki by Djibril Diop Mambéty – again for its social commentary. There are very few South African films that speak on post-Apartheid South Africa with such lyricism. We are still overwhelmed by the cloud of Apartheid. Not to say Apartheid is a story that is overdone (it’ll never be, there’ll never be enough stories told about it. As with the Holocaust I think our duty as South Africans is to continue to tell that story and its lasting effects. To analyze it, chronicle its omnipresence. We must never forget, or let others forget.
As a filmmaker I want to be an alternative voice, in a topography that’s filled with stories by others defining black people. Images that then become the truth, rather than a particular version of the truth (since truth is subjective). I want to make sure there are alternatives to films like Django Unchained.

Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there.

My top-5 films are constantly changing, I”m forever learning about directors of young and old. It’s a life long journey and I’m not in a rush. Also I like films for different reasons, for their parts rather than their whole.

Somewhere by Sofia Coppola is one that I constantly reference when writing or directing, because she managed to create her own cinematic Pinter Pause. She has intermittent irrelevant dialogue that doesn’t drive story between long moments of silent action. I think it’s powerful, and having tried to achieve it, I know it’s not easy, its very tricky, and it could easily seem contrived, or gimmicky . She’s found her own language and that’s great. I think she’s a little underrated, even for her privileged Coppola self. I’m looking for my own voice and in the meantime I’ll tread in the footsteps of the likes of her.

Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it.

“What is South African cinema lacking?”

I think we need to stop making films that compete with Hollywood films at the box-office. Its’ a losing battle. Nobody does Hollywood better than Hollywood. Instead we should go back to plain old storytelling. We should stop importing writing-gurus and their ilk. We’ll never find our own voice if all we do is use story telling templates or techniques that don’t acknowledge the context in which the story is being told. Sure, structure is important, but structure with bad content doesn’t make a good script.

* The ‘5 Questions for a Filmmaker …’ series is archived here.