Durban filmmaker returns to DIFF with Radio Rats doccie
Filmmaker Michael Cross focuses his documentary Jiving and Dying The Radio Rats Story, which will premiere at DIFF on a South African band of the 1970's that shaped the history of independent rock ’n roll in the country.
JIVING and Dying – The Radio Rats Story sees Durban filmmaker Michael Cross return to the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) from 16 to 26 June with a documentary about a band he argues are so much more than one-hit wonders.
Almost forty years ago, in late-1970s South Africa, there was a song on the radio about a spaceman called ZX Dan. It was by a noisy little band from Springs. That song and hundreds more songwriter Jonathan Handley has penned since then remain an important, if sometimes overlooked, part of South Africa’s musical landscape.
According to director Cross, this film, twenty-five years in the making, introduces the music of the Rats and the words of Jonathan Handley “in an attempt to afford them the place they deserve in the history of independent rock ’n roll in South Africa.”
The film reveals how Radio Rats were to influence one fellow resident of Springs, James Phillips (aka Bernoldus Niemand) to form a band and to write songs. It was Phillips who went on to initiate the alternative Afrikaans music scene of the mid-80s, the Voëlvry “movement” and, indirectly perhaps, the Oppikoppi music festival where a stage still bears his name.
Durban-based, Cross has attended DIFF since he was a teenager in the late-1970’s and has always been struck by the selection of music-documentaries featured over the years. “Jiving and Dying” is his third music-documentary selected for the Durban International Film Festival.
“Bafo Bafo – What Kind?!” profiling the collaboration between guitarists Syd Kitchen and Madala Kunene, premiered in 2005 and “Rockstardom – The Journey of a Small-Town Songwriter” screened in 2012 following it’s premiere at the Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival. He has produced more than 50 music videos with artists including Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Busi Mhlongo.
This 37th edition of DIFF features several music-related films with “Jiving and Dying” joined by: “Songs of Lahore”, “Breaking a Monster”, “I Shot Bi Kidude” and “Shwabade”. “Jiving and Dying” will premiere on Friday, 24 June 2016 at 8 pm at Ster-Kinekor Musgrave 5 and an additional screening will be on Sunday, 26 June at 11am, also at Ster-Kinekor Musgrave.
Visit www.durbanfilmfest.co.za for more details about the Festival.
