The international film industry was still reeling from the shock of the #MeToo movement when award-winning South African filmmaker Sara Blecher brought together a group of women to form Sisters Working in Film and Television (SWIFT) three years ago. SWIFT volunteers produced a series of #ThatsNotOK public service announcements depicting the "grey areas where women and vulnerable people are harassed and left feeling unsure of how to react". The work was funded by the KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission and MultiChoice.
Other SWIFT initiatives are a "no to sexual harassment pledge campaign" developed in collaboration with Actor Spaces, and a sexual harassment handbook.
In February Blecher and SWIFT board member Zoe Ramushu were sponsored by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, or GIZ, and UN Women's Step Up for Change to go to the Berlin Film Festival, where they encountered the concept of intimacy co-ordination.
SWIFT invited Kate Lush, a graduate of Ita O'Brien's Intimacy on Set training in London, to introduce the idea at the Durban International Film Festival. Lush, who has a background as an actor and movement director, came to the work because of her concern about what was happening to actors in the UK.
"I was asked to come up with a workshop for student actors in training on how actors could work together intimately in a safe space, but then the directors would take over and undermine my teachings," she said.
Lush also experienced the effects of directors not taking responsibility for sex scenes. "As an actor I worked in the UK low-budget horror scene. Practice in that industry is pretty terrible. People are dragged onto set and filmed very quickly: 'Okay, so you are going to do the rape, off you go.'
Practice in that industry is pretty terrible. People are dragged onto set and filmed very quickly: 'Okay, so you are going to do the rape, off you go'
"And there is a kid wandering around, popping in and out, naked people everywhere. Then I heard about Ita's work, and contacted her about joining the people who are helping to move it forward."
Intimacy co-ordination involves sculpting a scene in a way that makes sense to the storyline and character development and is safe for actors. If not properly choreographed, intimate scenes can result in psychological and emotional damage. In any sex scene this is equally true for both parties involved.
"In a rape scene, apart from taking care of the woman you are also asking a man to play a rapist and to get into that headspace. It is a two-way relationship," said Lush.
It is common for directors to tell actors to do their own thing when it comes to sex scenes, but no director would say this about a fight scene, Lush said, drawing a parallel with stunt co-ordination.
O'Brien is quoted as saying, "When you have a fight scene, you don't just hand people their swords on the day and tell them to 'go for it'."
"It's a mind shift that makes you realise it should always have been this way," said Blecher. "Why haven't we done it in this way before? I think one of the reasons is that intimacy is so difficult to talk about, so people basically don't talk about it. As Kate said, it's the one scene that everyone ignores to the end because everybody is uncomfortable talking about it. And that's the problem. So you never plan, you never co-ordinate, you never choreograph the scenes, whereas obviously there is a need for this."
Norman Maake, director of the film Love Lives Here, said he would "embrace" the idea of intimacy co-ordinators on set. "For me preparation is everything. The actor first gets to read the script and … to question if that is something that they want to do … I always insist that the two people who are going to do the sex scene also form their own boundaries."
A skeleton crew of two (camera and sound) is on set during the actual filming of a sex scene and Maake watches from a monitor off set.
Blecher is training to become SA's first intimacy co-ordinator. She sees the work as a bridge between her voluntary work for SWIFT and making her own films.
"As a film director there is lots of unpaid in-between time. Being an intimacy co-ordinator is a way for me to direct and ensure that all these issues get addressed in the industry - and earn a living," she said.
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