STATE OF VIOLENCE - FCAT

STATE OF VIOLENCE
Khalo Matabane
Sudáfrica, Francia – 2010 – 79’ – HDCam – Color – Sesotho, inglés, tsotsi-taal – Subtitulado español
SINOPSIS
Bonedi acaba de ser nombrado director general de una importante empresa minera de
Johannesburgo. Después de festejar el nombramiento con su esposa Joy y unos amigos, un hombre
ataca a la pareja en su casa y mata a Joy. Bobedi considera que la justicia es demasiado lenta y
decide vengarse. Cuando encuentra al asesino, no le queda más remedio que enfrentarse al secreto
que les une a través del tiempo. Deberá decidir si seguir con el ciclo de violencia o acabar de una vez
por todas.
FICHA TÉCNICA
Dirección
Khalo Matabane
Producción
Michelle Wheatley
Jeremy Nathan
Guión
Khalo Matabane
Fotografía
Matthys Mocke
Montaje
Audrey Maurion
Sonido
Xavier Thieu Lin
Jim Petrak

Dietary Keck
Intérpretes
Fana Mokoena
Presley Chweneyagae
Neo Ntlatleng
Lindi Matshikiza
Vusi Kunene
Premios / Prix / Awards
Milano 2011
Khalo Matabane
Biografía
Khalo Matabane nació en Sudafrica. Tiene en su haber varios documentales para televisión, entre los
que destacaremos Young Lions (2000) y Love in the Time of Sickness (2002), así como
documentales para cine como Beautiful Country (2004) y Conversations on Sunday Afternoon (2006),
ambos estrenados en la gran pantalla. Asimismo, dirigió la serie de cuatro capítulos When We Were
Black (2008).
Filmografía
1996 Two Decades Still (doc) – 1998 The Waiters (doc) – 2000 Young Lions (doc) – 2002 Love in the
Time of Sickness (doc) – 2004 Story of a Beautiful Country (doc) – 2006 Conversations on Sunday
Afternoon (doc) – 2008 When We Were Black (tv) – 2010 State of Violence (lm)

Proverbio de las dos tumbas
POR JUAN G. ANDRÉS - Domingo, 10 de Abril de 2011 - Actualizado a las 05:43h
'State of violence'
Sudáfrica-Francia, 2010. Guión y dirección. Khalo
Matabane. Fotografía. Matthys Mocke.Música. Max Richter, Stéphane
Moucha. Montaje. Audrey Maurion. Intérpretes. Fana Mokoena, Presley
Chweneyagae, Neo Ntlatleng, Lindi Matshikiza, Vusi Kunene. Duración. 79
minutos.
LA cuestión sudafricana vuelve a servir de argumento al Festival de Cine y
Derechos Humanos un año después de la proyección de la
notable Endgame (2009) del cineasta Pete Travis. Si aquella cinta abordaba en
clave de thriller político las conversaciones que pusieron fin al apartheid, State
of Violence (2010) transcurre en la época actual pero describe hechos ficticios
derivados de aquel tiempo convulso.
El director Khalo Matabane se decanta por un tono áspero y sosegado en un
filme sin actores-estrella y con una puesta en escena espartana, rayana casi en
lo televisivo. Cuenta, sin embargo, con un acertado y recio guión,
protagonizado por un hombre que recibe la trágica e inesperada visita de un
pasado no muy lejano. Porque no hace tanto tiempo -poco más de 20 añosque
los partidarios más radicales del Congreso Nacional Africano de Mandela
mataban a los negros que colaboraban con el apartheid mediante el
denominado necklacing, un linchamiento que consistía en colocar un neumático
en el cuello del traidor, rociarlo de gasolina y prenderle fuego.
Con una efectiva economía de medios y altas dosis de credibilidad, Matabane
plantea cuestiones tan interesantes como la imposibilidad de pedir perdón -que
en ocasiones puede resultar más difícil incluso que perdonar-, e interroga al
espectador y a sus personajes sobre el (sin)sentido de la violencia, la venganza
y el conflicto fratricida. Lo resume ejemplarmente el proverbio que alguien cita
en el ecuador de la película. "Cuando quieras vengarte, cava dos tumbas: una
es para tu enemigo; la otra para ti".

CULTURA
«La violencia es una bola que
no para de rodar»
El sudafricano Khalo Matanabe indaga en los rencores y traiciones
dentro de la familia en 'State of Violence'
10.04.11 - 04:43 -
RICARDO ALDARONDO | SAN SEBASTIÁN.
«Muchas veces se piensa que en Sudáfrica el problema siempre está entre los
blancos y los negros. Pero el apartheid también ha creado problemas entre los
propios negros. No hemos tenido oportunidad de hablar entre nosotros, de dialogar
entre las familias, entre los vecinos», afirma el director sudafricano Khalo
Matabane, que esta tarde a las 19.00 horas presenta su película 'State of Violence'
en el Victoria Eugenia, en una nueva jornada del Festival de Cine y Derechos
Humanos de San Sebastián.
«Quería hablar de la violencia, que es una bola que no para de rodar, y que es
difícil detener», explicaba ayer Matanabe en San Sebastián. «Pero también quería
ver qué significa pertenecer a una familia, ser fiel a tus camaradas, o seguir
considerando a las personas que tienes cerca más importantes que las ideas
políticas». 'State of Violence' no habla exactamente de política, sino de cómo las
circunstancias del pasado siguen teniendo consecuencias en la familia y el entorno
del protagonista, y cómo el perdón es necesario para detener la violencia. «Pero a
veces se sufre tanto que ya no se es capaz de perdonar. Por eso es tan admirable
lo que hizo Mandela después de 27 años en la cárcel».
Matanabe, que tiene en su haber otros documentales, como 'Conversations On a
Sunday Afternoon' y también escribe en la prensa sobre política, explica que la
situación de la población negra en Sudáfrica es compleja: «No sólo intervienen
cuestiones sociales, también económicas. Algunos negros se ha enriquecido
mucho con su participación en grandes empresas, pero eso no ha redundado en la
mejora de la situación de la población negra en general».
Otra película destaca en la jornada de hoy, el nuevo filme de la directora Claire
Denis, 'White Material' que habla de la situación de una familia que trata de
mantener su plantación de café en un país de África, en medio de las revueltas y,
de nuevo, de la violencia.

Khalo Matabane: State of Violence
The South African director, who went from writing documentaries early in his career to
dealing with fiction, makes his Berlinale debut with a tense, compelling action film with
documentary approach to daily life in his home country.
Sum up your film in one sentence.
Film about memory and denial.
How did you come up with the initial idea
Because violence is such a typical theme in South Africa and the world, I wanted to
understand it deeper.
If you could show your film in a double feature, which would be the other
one
I would screen it with [Michael] Haneke’s film Caché, because I love it and the themes
of denial are similar.
Why do you make films
I love telling stories.
If you didn’t make films, what would you do
Be a Buddhist monk.
What would you like to be remembered for
Living my life to the fullest and being kind, generous and fair.
Take two films on a desert island…
Raging Bull by Martin Scorsese and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran.
A film or director that changed your life Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and
Costa-Gavras’s Z.
Describe one of your favourite scenes in a film of your choice.
The scene in The Godfather where the Al Pacino character confronts his brother who
has just betrayed him and ends up killing him. Heartbreaking.
February 3, 2011

Home News News Archive 2010 August 2010 A city divided, a State of Violence
A city divided, a State of Violence
26 August 2010
Khalo Matabane's first dramatic feature "State of Violence", the opener at last month's Durban
International Film Festival, is a fascinating insight into a Johannesburg divided by wealthand
class, exploring issues of memory, denial, forgiveness and revenge. Andrew Worsdale looks at
the film's treatment of the city's contradictions and its place in the development of Matabane's
unique cinematic voice.
Khalo Matabane is an auteur. His films reflect a singular, personal vision and, although driven
by sociopolitical themes from the legacy of the struggles against apartheid to issues of
xenophobia and the individual's place in the new South Africa, his movies are never didactic
agit-prop exercises. Matabane's individualist style is always more interested in questioning
different realities than providing clear-cut answers.
His feature-length documentary "Story of a Beautiful Country" redefined the notion of both road
movie and documentary as he told the stories of ordinary people from the back of a minibus
taxi.
His 2006 film "Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon" was a perceptive and compelling feature
length docu-drama set in Joburg's inner city that explored the lives of refugees and examined
topics such as migration, displacement and Johannesburg's new-found role as a haven for
refugees from both Africa and the rest of the world. The film was named best South African film
at that year's Durban Fest and Won the Ecumenical Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
His four-part television series "When We Were Black" was a complex, intelligent and warm look
at the innocence and naivety of people on the brink of adulthood in the midst of the seminal
1976 Soweto uprising.
I've hung out with Khalo, even did a spot of acting for a bread and butter TV show he directed,
and his favourite comment when enthused about virtually anything is, "That's really,
really interesting." Forever enquiring, looking between the lines in events or conversations,
Matabane is a determined cineaste and a lover of both movies and polemic, making him,
possibly, South Africa's foremost intellectual filmmaker.
With his first feature-length fictional narrative, the analytical director chose to focus on themes
of betrayal, revenge and the legacies of the past. As "State of Violence" producer Jeremy
Nathan says of their development process: "Constantly Khalo watches films, from anywhere in
the world, obsessively, texting ideas to his large group of socially networked friends, testing his
political and storytelling thoughts to an initial virtual audience."
Khalo approached Nathan's Dv8 Films over five years ago with a rough outline and concept for
a feature film about a comrade from the struggle for liberation who had risen from debilitating
poverty to a position of great wealth in the new South Africa. "Key to the plot was the fact that
our lead character, as an angry young kid in the 1980s fighting the apartheid regime, its police
and soldiers, had killed a sellout in his own community - a policeman," says the producer.
The scripting, casting and production process became part writing, with much debate and
discussion, and part workshop with French screenwriter and script editor Jacques Akchoti, more
input from various partners and funders and deep discussions with the cast and crew, led to an
inclusive creative process that allowed for input from everyone on the team.

The film tells the story of Bobedi (Fana Mokoena), who, when his wife is killed, is forced to go in
search of the killer. His search takes him out of his comfort zone in wealthy Sandton and back
into Alexandra township, a place of buried memories. When he finds out that the killer is his own
cousin, his dead uncle's son, he is forced to deal with the family he left behind. Starring opposite
Mokoena is Presley Chweneyagae, famous globally for his performance in "Tsotsi", who plays
the role of Boy-Boy.
They are joined by veteran actors Mary Twala, Vusi Kunene, Lindi Matshikiza, Tinah
Mnumzana, Harriet Manamela and Neo Ntlatleng. "At the core of Khalo's investigation was his
deep desire to understand why violence is so embedded in our national psyche, how poverty,
perpetual conflict and the long history of colonisation and apartheid have created a nation of
extremely violent people, who continue to perpetrate acts of violence so easily," says Nathan.
With his documentary background and constantly prying mind Matabane went about
conceptualising the narrative for the film through an intense development process based on
character which carried through into production.
"The way the film was shot was interesting because it was a collaborative effort and we all had
freedom on set and the cast and heads of departments came with ideas," he says.
"It was during this process that the story became even more intimate and I realised that the
strength of the story was in the family dynamics. The film deals with themes of memory, denial,
ideology versus family, the wealth of Sandton versus the poverty of Alexandra township in a
subtle way. Is it better to remember or to forget And when should we forget and when should
we remember"
In his director's treatment for the film, prepared together with the script to attract finance,
Matabane wrote: "The violent act that the main character, Bobedi, experiences, forces him to
escape his comfort zone of his suburban life. Like me, he lives in a predominantly old Jewish
neighborhood.
"He embarks on a journey into the underbelly of Johannesburg, a harsh and brutal landscape
full of contradictions. The few exceptionally wealthy people who lock themselves in gated
communities with security guards and electric fences provide a stark contrast to the rest of the
population who are the wretched of the earth.
The dream of forging national reconciliation and a just and equitable society has failed and
Johannesburg is a place of broken dreams where dog eats dog. It is a city of greed where
money buys the characters almost anything except their souls."
Despite these harsh words Khalo says: "The film does not judge or offer moral solutions, but
rather it intends to provoke and leave an audience to make up their own minds about violence,
especially in a world where the marginalised increasingly feel the need to resort to violence as
an act of desperation to make themselves heard."
After its Durban world premiere, online critic Roger Young described the film as "not a standard
vigilante film, it's more about a state of mind a stark, stripped down and affecting film about the
numbness of revenge".
Nathan says that what differentiates "State of Violence" from other South African films is that "it
does not ever deal with simplistic racial violence. Uniquely, it focuses on the brutal affects of
poverty and apartheid on the black family unit, and how this family unit has been devastated
over time, its fragility sustained largely by women.
"By linking our behaviour in the present, to the consequences of our actions in the past, the film
raises questions more than giving answers, about whether true forgiveness in a post colonial,
post apartheid society, is actually really achievable."
The powerful revenge thriller was shot in 30 days late last year, mostly in the poverty-stricken
township of Alexandra, five minutes from Sandton, the wealthy heart of Johannesburg. The
contrast between these two worlds - one unbelievably rich and modern, the other almost
medieval in its poverty - is a metaphor for a man caught between his past and his present, who
grew up in the grinding poverty of Alex, and who now lives the high life in Sandton.
These contrasts formed a fascinating visual conflict for the film. "The colours of Sandton before
Bobedi's wife dies are warm in contrast to being cold after she has been killed," says the
director. "Alexandra township colours are bleached and white, it's hot, everything is grey and

own, a decaying brown of everything that is old. The colours accentuate the wealth in
Sandton and the poverty in Alexandra township."
The contrast was not only visual but aural as well. "The film does not use scored music but
different sound designs," says Matabane. "We hear the sound that he hears and sometimes it's
a sound that haunts him, like his wife sobbing before she dies or it's a distorted sound.
"The sound of wealthy Sandton is different from the one in Alexandra township. The suburb is
quiet except for the birds and dogs barking and alarms going off, while Alexandra is very loud -
traffic, different musical styles, loud radios playing, taxis hooting."
The film was a complex coproduction but the producers had to find partners sensitive to
Matabane's process as a director. Collaborators included the National Film and Video
Foundation (NFVF), SABC, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Rebate, the Industrial
Development Corporation (IDC) and the Gauteng Film Commission (GFC) in South Africa.
Nathan is full of praise for the GFC, saying: "They were and still are a powerful partner on the
project, from preproduction through to distribution."
Foreign support came from the French CNC's Fonds Sud and Italy's Unidea together with Diana
Elbaum and Sebastien Delloye's Liaison Cinematographique, the French coproducer, who also
brought the sales company, Pyramide International, to the film.
Despite the complexities and the agendas that come with a coproduction like this the everreflective
Khalo sighs and says: "It was important that I did my first fiction film with producers
who understand the importance of bringing a directorial voice to the screen, and I think it is
visible in this film.
"The themes that fascinate me - history, memory, religion and the process of filming, part
conventional, part improvised. 'Violence' is a film in which I try to find my cinematic voice, one
that is influenced by my growing up in a village with a strong oral traditional of story-telling, my
experiences as a documentary filmmaker, my love for different genres of cinema, from different
eras and continents and ideologies.
It is in the end a cinema of a film traveller and lover, one who likes to provoke with cinema. It is
what I call the cinema of the dreamers."
This particular dream of Matabane's is about to infiltrate film festivals across the globe over the
next few months, from Toronto to Pusan, Carthage and Dubai. It's scheduled for a local release
in March next year.