A steely eye for film

TREVOR Steele Taylor is not a duck treading water, calm on the surface but frantic underneath, his calm is real and contagious and clearly the sign of a man that has it all under control. A man of immense skill and wry wit, an under-acknowledged asset to the festival and South African film. This world renowned film critic manages to divide his time between Johannesburg, Cape Town and London, running festivals while dabbling in everything from direction to being an agent. He brings his nine years of experience running the film festival.

When asked about his selection criteria for this year’s festival, he puts himself on the side of ‘the eccentrics’, those festival organisers that fill their programmes with personal vision. He is against selections by committee. His response to a general trend of shrinking film audiences is to make the most of his opportunity to stage a world-class line-up for a responsive and keen festival audience.

This year he has selected Mexican films, along with a selection of works by Fassbinder, Kaganof and Shakhnazarov, a Tarkovsky retrospective and a programme of new South African and international films from the circuit. However, Taylor is quick to point out that even this more ‘mainstream’ section is sure to lure audiences who may then attempt more interesting fare.

2007 Standard Bank Young Artist for Film award winner, Akin Omotoso, who acts, produces and directs, is featured with two selections of shorter pieces and two feature films.

Taylor is clearly not one shy of controversy

SMS Sugar Man, directed by Aryan Kaganof, which has received a large amount of press for being the first feature film to be completely shot on a cell phone, was removed. Taylor sees it as Kaganof’s attempt to break into the mainstream. SMS Sugar Man was excluded due to a dispute between its director and producer. Taylor has decided to replace it with The Fall by documentarian, Peter Whitehead. This screening comes fresh on the heels of a Whitehead festival run at the Labia in Cape Town and the Goethe Institut in Johannesburg. The film was selected because of Kaganof’s adoration for Whitehead’s work. It is a remarkable document of America falling into violence and turmoil in the late 1960s.

Taylor is clearly not one shy of controversy; at times, he seems to incite it. However, he can’t help but chuckle at a unintentional controversy he caused with one of his previous screenings. Walking into his showing of Leni Riefenstahl’s testament to Hitler’s Nazi Party, Triumph of the Will, Taylor was confronted by a much larger audience than anticipated. After doing a little digging, Taylor discovered that the screening came on the back of a spirited speech by Pallo Jordan on freedom of speech which directly cited the film as a prime example of hate speech. While no such controversy is foreseen this year, it wouldn’t be surprising if the man who lists Deep Throat as one of the best films of all time has something waiting up his sleeve.