Seven years after writer Sean Drummond and director Michael
Matthews first set out on an 8000km research and development journey around the
country, The Be Phat Motel Film Company and Game 7 Films’ Five Fingers for
Marseilles, which was a project at the 2013 Durban FilmMart, is
taking its next big step to the big screen.
The film, a contemporary South African thriller modelled on
the western and played in Sesotho and isiXhosa, with a top-tier, fully local
cast, begins production in the Eastern Cape in July 2016, in association with
Stage 5 Films and Above the Clouds.
Once, the young ‘Five Fingers’ fought for the rural town of
Marseilles, against brutal police oppression. Now, 20 years after fleeing in
disgrace, freedom-fighter-turned-‘outlaw’ Tau (Vuyo Dabula) returns, seeking
only peaceful anonymity. Finding the town under vicious new threat, he must
choose whether to run again or to reluctantly fight to free it. Will the Five
Fingers stand again?
Dabula heads an ensemble cast featuring Thishiwe Ziqubu,
Kenneth Nkosi, Mduduzi Mabaso, Lizwi Vilakazi, Kenneth Fok, Anthony Oseyemi and
Dean Fourie, with Jerry Mofokeng. Cast by Moonyeenn Lee, the film will look to
local Eastern Cape communities for a number of youth and supporting roles.
Five Fingers is Be Phat Motel’s first narrative
feature, after international documentary and shorts success. Game 7 Films’
Yaron Schwartzman and Asger Hussain’s credits include Academy-Award-winning Precious,
The Paperboy, and upcoming true-life crime-story 37. Stage 5 Films’
credits include Silwerskermfees-winner Hollywood in my Huis, Unearthed,
the upcoming The Whale Caller and DIFF opening film The Journeymen.
The film was awarded DFM Finance Forum’s ‘Best South African
Film in Development’ in 2013. Indigenous Film Distribution will release in
South Africa in 2017 and XYZ Films will represent for North American sales. The
film is made possible with the support of the NFVF and the DTI, with additional
services from Dupa Films.
Five Fingers for Marseilles will premiere
internationally in early 2017.
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