Premier Ebrahim Rasool Western Cape Executive Producer Don Edkins

By Premier Ebrahim Rasool


There is no keynote address; there are just some words of appreciation.

I think we all know why we are here. We are here partly to see a film that has won the best of humanitarian awards at the Oscars. What makes “Taxi to the Dark Side” special, because many films have won awards in one way or the other at the Oscars, the reason that we are here to honour this particular film, is because its executive producer is a homeboy; he is from amongst us. He has imbibed the worst that this country has to give, and he has under-experienced the best that this country has to give.

And it is not often that we have an opportunity to see a film that comes from the consciousness that only South Africa can create. It is a consciousness Laurence Mitchell used for commenting on the human condition; it makes one conscious of how we continuously strive to improve that human condition and how we try to be unconscious when one person does something bad to another person.

An example is when we diminish each other by violating each other’s human rights. And so, Don Hakens, we are here to say to you in particular, but also to everyone who worked with you to create this award-winning film documentary, congratulations, well done and thank you very much for doing us proud. You do us proud not only because you have won an award, you do us proud because in a world that is ravaged by war and by conflict, you have chosen to be conscious about it.

We all know that the war on terrorism has many victims who die mysteriously in one or other facility of the United States. We all know that the American consciousness within the US has been dissolved, because the top one of these violations takes place within the American dream and its borders. It happens outside so that everyday millions of Americans can go on with their lives, believing that their discourse is good, and an entire congress votes to make torture permissible under certain circumstances. Then the conscious ness has to shift elsewhere, because the law and its custodians and the representatives of the people have given away the right to be the consciousness of the world, since they have becomes accomplices in a violation.

I feel that we all ought to be proud and happy that the creative community, as in this case exemplified by you, has chosen to play the role of consciousness when civil and political leaders have become accomplices in a violation. And what it says to us is that the work that you do must be a reminder to use our creativity in ways that entertain, but which also teach ; that bring enjoyment and help us to use our time, but continues to remind us of that duty that we have.

That is the wonderful thing about “Taxi to the Dark Side” – that you have shown that there is a dark side in any country, potentially, and that constitutional provisions against torture, while we may want to do it to the worst drug dealer and to the worst murderer and do this to the other, that unless we speak about those constitutional provisions, we could fall asleep and comfortably stroll off into the dark side of the human condition. That is where I think the creative community has to rise to the occasion. Sometimes the creative community also abdicates, because they go for the quick wins, they go for the money swingers; they go for the formats that are popular, if not populist.

And by being prolific, they also sometimes abdicate responsibility, and I think what you tell us here today is that we should find that balance, and we have to find the form of communication and the form of film making that can do both. And I think that particularly heavy subject you have taken, and you have decided that this is how you want to be conscious when others have abdicated.

I think that, in conclusion, it confirms yet again that in a Cape of Storms, not just methodologically, but politically and socially in terms of the demographics of the Western Cape, in terms of the messages of the residues of various "isms" like racism and ethnocism and all of those kinds of things, that sometimes it is particularly when you are in the eye of the storm, that the greatest creativity comes.

The Western Cape has shown that this cosmopolitan thing in particular, which is at the worst of times troublesome, can, at the best of times, be the source of our creativity. And therefore, no film -maker, no one involved in that entire conveyer belt of making a film should ever only allow South Africa and the Western Cape to be a location for other films, for telling other peoples' stories. We have made it a condition with Anant Singh and the Cape Town Film Studios that that studio should be a location for international films, but should have a film school, and more importantly, should set aside time for telling our own stories and should set aside time for local producers, and they should not have to pay in dollars or anything like that, they should be empowered to make films at rates that are comfortable to all of us. Those are the conditions on which Government has contributed to that film studio.

And I think we should say to National Government: How many more awards must we win for South Africa to get the chip off your shoulder and for you to believe that we are good enough to make films for a strategic sector? How many more times must we knock on the Departments of Trade and Industry's doors to say to them, this is potentially one of the areas of great investment and you have to pin down now already 24 films, or whatever the case may be per annum, we are going to fund fully.

I think that what we lack at this moment is the confidence, as a nation, to just get into the film sector boots and all. And I think that every time we have a success like we are celebrating now, we should drive home the message that there are stories to be told, that we have people who can tell it, we have the creative people, we have technical people, we have the locations, we have the technology, we are recognised in the world as of the best in all of those fields. What we lack is the confidence of a Government to invest in it, and in a small way Provincial Government can do what it does, but I think that we need a greater bugging.

And so, if you do not mind, we should abuse your success to drive home that message much cleared. Congratulations and thank you very much.