A cowboy from eKasi, an infamous gang steeped in Zulu history, and a group of body-swapping millennials - these South African characters joined the lineup of movies from around the world that premiered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.
This year's fest was marked by the 20th anniversary of the signing of a co-production treaty between Canada and South Africa, and the country's strongest showing yet at the festival. Three feature films and a documentary in official selection put South Africa firmly on this year's lineup.
Filmmakers behind The Number, High Fantasy and Five Fingers for Marseilles, as well as the documentary Silas, a co-production between South Africa, Canada and Kenya, were there to promote their films.
FIVE FINGERS FOR MARSEILLES
For Sean Drummond and Michael Matthews, the scriptwriter and director behind Five Fingers, it was a seven-year dream in the making.
"The first challenge was believing we could do this thing," says Drummond, adding that they wanted to premiere at Toronto because of its reputation for showing a mix of award potentials and new cinema. "It was the one festival we wanted because it's the people's festival. It has that balance between star films and unknown films plucked from far corners of the world."
Five Fingers, with dialogue in Sotho and Xhosa, stood out as a unique offering. Cast members Zethu Dlomo, Hamilton Dlamini, Vuyo Dabula and Kenneth Nkosi were at the premiere.
WATCH the trailer for Five Fingers
"I love the genre of the Western," says Dlomo, "it's a beautiful container for the political state of our country, and the characters are as real as your neighbours."
Located in Lady Grey in the Eastern Cape, Five Fingers tells a universal story revolving around corruption, vengeance, friendship and fear. Dlamini says: "This story has given us a chance to represent South Africa. This film is an opportunity to show the world we're not the only ones affected by ideologies."
No stranger to the festival circuit, Nkosi says he'd been itching to play this kind of dramatic role. "It's a very different project, and I play quite a different character."
For Dabula, it was a chance to channel a different energy from his TV roles. "The set made me think of Mad Max - that post-apocalyptic vibe, very broody, very now."
HIGH FANTASY
The size and scale of Jenna Bass's film is smaller, but she says seeing her film in the festival lineup shows emerging filmmakers they need not feel intimidated by the bigger movies. "It doesn't always have to take 10 years to make a film," says Bass. "Although, of course it can."
She made her film with a cast of four actors using two iPhone7s. "From conception to premiere took a year."
High Fantasy is Bass's second feature film, following 2014's Love the One You Love. In High Fantasy, four friends who travel to a farm owned by one of them wake up to find they've all swapped bodies.
WATCH the trailer for High Fantasy
"I'm very interested in mixing genres," says Bass. "Because life is one big mixed genre. It's a horror and it's a romance and it's a comedy and an adventure and a thriller. It's everything."
The style allows the cast to have conversations about what it means to literally walk in someone else's shoes. "I cast young people who embodied the zeitgeist I wanted to capture, thinking about society's problems and approaching them with different viewpoints."
The cast used the phones to film each other. "It was pretty straightforward, and it worked because everyone shoots video on their phone every day. Cinematography is put on a pedestal for good reasons, but it has been democratised in ways we don't even realise," says Bass.
"My upbringing has been extremely secluded, and it's left me wanting to tell stories about more than just me."
THE NUMBER
Ten years ago, Presley Chweneyagae came to the Toronto Film Festival with a movie that would go on to earn South Africa's first best foreign language Oscar. Like in Tsotsi, Chweneyagae plays a gangster in The Number - although in this film, he's of the far more sinister kind.
"It's a little surreal, to have been here 10 years ago," he says. "It was my first big international trip, and my first film. Now, I have a lot more experience, and I'm a little more mature, you could say."
Chweneyagae previously worked with director Khalo Matabane on the film State of Violence, so he says when he was called for The Number, he knew he wanted to be involved. Based loosely on the book by Jonny Steinberg, the film follows the journey of Magadien, a leader of a "numbers" prison gang, who seeks redemption. "We have problems with gangsterism all over the world," says Chweneyagae. "The language might be different but the story is universal."
Matabane got his big start in filmmaking at the Toronto festival, when its artistic director Cameron Bailey saw his film Conversations on a Sunday, and brought him over from South Africa for the first time. "I love the people here," he says. "The audience come out to see the films, and there's really an energy here that's so great."
It's a stark contrast, he says, to his experience of film festivals in South Africa. "I was on the jury at the Durban International Film Festival and the cinemas were empty. It was heartbreaking."
