Kevin Minter-Brown
There was drama off-screen at the Durban International Film Festival yesterday when two local movie-makers clashed verbally, one storming out during a screening.
The film was a student documentary on the slaughtering of turtles, with the idea being conceptualised by journalist Fred Kockott and his journalism students from Roving Reporters, but made by former East-Coast Radio DJ Kevin Minter-Brown, who wrote, edited, narrated and produced the documentary on behalf of KulumaTv. It was filmed in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park world heritage site.
The students envisioned a documentary about Makotikoti Zikhali who was jailed after killing an endangered loggerhead turtle for food and muti. He was released this year.
However, what was produced was a high-standard documentary focusing on conservation issues, the rights of generations of people who had been living in the park for 700 years and the rights of the wildlife they were killing.
Not happy that the concept had been skewed, the students opted to rework Minter-Brown’s film and screen their production alongside his at a journalism workshop about the making of the documentary.
An apparent misunderstanding saw Minter-Brown expecting to see his production, but when the re-edited and incomplete film was shown instead, he stood up, voiced his opinion of the “terrible” work, and walked out, followed by some members of the audience who, he said, had been laughing at the production.
Fred Kockott
“It was a beautiful documentary. I wrote, narrated, edited and produced it. But then they hacked it to death. It was diabolical,” he said.
Kockott responded that the production had been presented as a “work in progress” and that he and the students, who had approached KulumaTv about filming and producing it, had never guaranteed that their work would be the final cut.
The only drama at the workshop was Minter-Brown “standing up and screaming”, Kockott said.
After storming out, Minter-Brown said his voiceovers had been taken out and, instead, Kockott and one of the reporters had narrated it.
“But they spoke over one another. One minute the sound was soft, then it was blaring. Sometimes there was no sound and the screen was blank saying ‘insert footage here’. Shots of the students flashed up on the screen and they were not even talking about what the documentary was about.
“I respect (Kockott) as a reporter, but he is no voiceover artist… He has ruined my name and (that of) KulumaTv.”
Kockott said KulumaTv’s version was a “very good production” and potentially “a very good media education documentary”, but it was not what the students had set out to achieve, and that they wanted to re-edit it. He had told KulumaTv of that and invited them to screen their version alongside that of the students.
Nosipho Mngoma, trainee project co-ordinator for the documentary, said Minter-Brown’s response was “unexpected” and “boggling”.
“There was nothing wrong with their product, but we wanted to tell Makotikoti Zikhali’s story.”
Minter-Brown and KulumaTv released their version online in order to avoid “dragging their names through the mud”.
Monica Hemming-Rorvik, assistant manager of the film festival, said the film had not been billed as a final product and was not shown in the theatre. About 25 people attended the workshop.
