Video: SA’s coming-of-age comedy film will have you in stitches

Are you ready to laugh? Then grab the popcorn and head to the cinemas to watch Just Now Jeffrey, which explores growing up in South Africa in the 1980s.

The local coming-of-age film, produced using an all-South African cast and crew, takes creative and authentic storytelling and adds a touch of humour.

“After years in the making, the movie was snapped up on completion by international film festivals in Toronto, Beverly Hills and Poland; as well as Ster-Kinekor, Nu Metro, the Labia and bioscope theatres locally. It’s been praised for its world-class production, beautiful cinematography, art direction, and catchy soundtrack,” says a press release on the movie which was released on Friday.

The storyline

While the world was radically changing around him, teenager Jeffrey Greenbaum (Julian Robinson) hardly noticed. He just needed to get laid. Jeffrey convinces his best pal Brad Berman (Dino Vavatzanidis) to help devise a strategy to lose their virginity before they finish high school.

Things, however, don’t go as planned and Jeffrey and Brad soon become entangled in a crazy web of love, lust, videotape piracy, rugby violence, political protest and pornography.

The comedy is set in Johannesburg in 1989 and features an all-star ensemble cast including Rob van Vuuren, Nicky Rebelo, Nik Rabinowitz, Natasha Loring, Frances Sholto-Douglas, Mila Rayne and Meghan Oberholzer.

The production

The writers and directors, Brett Morris and Hylton Tannenbaum, have been best friends since the age of 12 and after more than 25 years of working, and winning awards together, have realised their dream of making a movie.

“Just Now Jeffrey has been several years in the making. It was our intention to create a unique coming-of-age comedy that represents and normalises our youths as teens growing up in 1980s South Africa. We have also always wanted to give a voice to a generation that grew up in South Africa towards the end of apartheid. We found that South Africans were generally painted with the same brush, and we wanted to show all of the complexity and nuances across the political spectrum during that time: From right to left and everything in between.”

Production company Bioscope Films teamed up with Moonlighting Films, a film services company, to create the unique film, which was shot on location in Cape Town last year.

The rich and layered soundtrack of the film is made up of a combination of original music scored by Alun Richards, and a wide range of local and international 1980s hits by artists including Twisted Sister, Soft Cell, Joy, Petit Cheval, Cinema, Sweatband, Wonderboom and Sipho Hotstix Mabuse.

‘Something we’ve never seen’

Toronto Film Festival director Stuart Hands says: “People always ask what is it that festivals look for in a film, and we say something we’ve never seen before. And Just Now Jeffrey is just that. We’d never seen a coming-of-age film set in South Africa in the 1980s, with world-class production values.”

Trailer