“Africa's increasing role in global creative culture” - Nick Dutton

South Africa is part of that story. The continent is becoming more confident and, critically, less impressed and influenced by what it sees elsewhere.

It’s to be cheered that it’s hitting more home runs in the world of commercial creativity, but thankfully it’s no surprise.

The founders are all South Africans with creative backgrounds and have been fortunate to work around the globe on some of the world’s most creative and awarded brands. So it was natural for us to be an ‘in-house’ creative and production group. We developed the idea for the film, but there was never a specific script, just a sense of what we wanted the output to be. We thus need directors who could work organically and collaboratively, and Pato and Frankie from the Panteras were that.

We had a loose shot list, a map, eight days and a Hyundai van. The whole thing was a creative leap, it could have gone $#!t-shaped, but we worked hard and had some lucky bounces.

With the limits on budget we had to enlist help and favours where we could get them. It ended up being a global African production. Shot in Durban and Ponto do Ouro, Mozambique. Edited in Buenos Aires. Graded in London. Sound mix in Milan.

SA has world-class production and craft skills. That said, we specifically wanted an outside fresh perspective to capture that visceral sense of wonder that African adventure can give. Pato and Frankie had never been to Africa before, so they got off the plane in Durban and shot pretty much non-stop. They had a naïve fearlessness that got them into some pretty left-field and extreme situations. Previous knowledge and experience of shooting in Africa may have created limitations:

Seems coming in from the cold can lead to impressive results. Be sure to follow Mami Wata on the follow social media channels: Instagram | Facebook.