Bunny Chow - a well known South African Cuisine

Dictionary definition
A loaf of bread is cut in half; the soft inside of the bread is pulled out and replaced with an assortment of curried meats and vegetables.

Our definition
Bunny chow is a metaphor for the film as it represents the melting pot of cultures, religions and sexual preferences of JHB all thrown into a half loaf of bread that's had its insides pulled out. To get to the good stuff you have to peel away the outside layers and mop up the juices.
The joy of eating a bunny chow is that it's designed to be eaten by more than one person so the ritual of eating the food is as interesting as the food. It's the poor mans version of the Fondue. 

STORY
Dave (David Kibuuka) is a "dishwasher" who has set his mind on becoming a successful stand up comedian despite his absolute lack of success on stage and the sensible advice form his neighbour, who urges him to focus on a more stable occupation like accountancy. Dave however, is determined to succeed.
Kags (Kagiso Lediga), a more established comedian, is to some extent a mentor to Dave. With delusions of grandeur and a relentless womanising streak, he subjects his insecure girlfriend, the beautiful Kim (Kim Engelbrecht) to feelings of doubt and un-fulfillment in their relationship. She needs something more serious but he is far from ready to fully commit.
Joey (Yusuf Rasdien) is a comedian and a Muslim, whose devotion to his faith is questionable. He finds himself torn between the temptations offered by his chosen vocation as an entertainer, and servitude to his religion. His disgruntled and jealous girlfriend Angela (Angela Chow) does not make his life any easier.
These three friends are joined by Cope (Jason Cope), a weird and wandering acquaintance who epitomizes aimlessness, slip out of the city for a journey to a big rock festival in the wilds where they hope to dazzle crowds with their comedy, and engage in unparalleled decadence away from their collective realities.
While the boys are away, Kim discovers something that could possibly change her life and serve as a catalyst in bringing her and Kags closer together. She cannot contain herself so she ventures to the festival to confront Kags with the news. Meanwhile at the festival, amid constant mockery from his comrades, Dave finds a potential love interest and an opportunity to finally find his voice on stage.
Bunny Chow is a contemporary and urban South African tale about young people and their journeys to self discovery, self destruction, self delusion and a good dose of selfishness.
 
PRODUCTION NOTES : JOHN BARKER & KAGISO LEDIGA
Taking into account the massive cost of regular filmmaking, from the development of the script, to the pre-production, to the shoot and later with post production, it's no wonder that so few films get made in South Africa, actually  it's a  miracle that any films gets made at all.
After completing a successful TV sketch comedy show, The Pure Monate Show, John Barker and Kagiso Lediga formed Dog Pack Films, and along with the top writers from the show(David Kibuuka, Salah Sabiti and Joey Rasdien), began writing two screen plays, THE DICTATOR and THE LAST DAYS OF ANNA VAN STORM. After a frustrating year of trying to raise funding, the team decided to just go out and shoot a low budget film. 
Instead of staging a music festival with thousands of extras, we went to a real music festival.  The problem was that the festival was only four weeks away, so we adopted the retro scripting technique. This allowed us to write broad outlines of scenes and keep them quite loose so that we could change them when performances or locations did not work.
We had a pool of very talented writers, performers, cinematographers and editors who very hungry to make a feature film. The talent was never the issue. Trying to convince investors that we would be able to deliver a feature film was. Our sponsors pulled out the night before we left for the festival. We scraped what little personal ready cash we had and just began shooting. We also killed my wife's credit card!
We retro scripted, shot and edited for the next eight months taking on other production work to support ourselves and save money for the production.  We were happy with the two hour offline but we now needed to take the film to the next level. We approached Jeremy Nathan and Joel Phiri from Dv8 films and independent producer Michelle Wheatley . The guys liked the film and agreed to partner Dog Pack and finish the film to an internationally acceptable standard, to raise the post production finance, and get the film distributed.  We together got the cut down to its final length, 95 minutes.
We chose a very urban soundtrack to match the contemporary themes of the film. Most of the music on the soundtrack is South African with Joel Assaizky providing and scoring most of the tracks.

INDIE COMEDY IN SA       KAGISO LEDIGA
South Africa is finally emerging from the Cinematic dark ages and its restrictive past, which saw the prevalence of angst ridden post apartheid dramas, and the rise of parochial slapstick comedies. These slip-on-a-banana hidden camera comedies have characterized South African comedy and cinema for decades, become ultra successful locally, but do not truly reflect the psyche of contemporary urban South Africans.
South African culture is going through a resurgence, experiencing new found freedoms, but also alarmingly new censorship. Cultural practitioners are discovering their voices in their individual disciplines, from musicians to comedians, writers to critics, artists and poets - all are under funded and struggle to get a platform. These ingredients all make for an exciting and challenging time.
Stand up comedy is currently taking South African audiences by storm. Comedians are playing to packed audiences across the country, in small sleazy venues, through to large casino theatres. The comedians have quickly become household names. David Kibuuka, Kagiso Lediga, Joey Rasdien and Kim Engelbrecht are all at the cutting edge of a new pop culture.
From this melting pot comes a new wave of cinema, undertaken by mostly urban filmmakers, who are ready to delve into real lives to find personal stories.
These cinephiles, influenced by a wide array of global cinema, are not letting a lack of funding stand in their paths, armed with borrowed equipment, a willing crew and an ability to candidly tell a story, they are taking a revolution to their thirsty audience. And want to make them laugh, and feel.

DIRECTOR'S TREATMENT      JOHN BARKER
Set in JHB, the film is loosely based on the lives of four stand-up comedians who embark on a road trip to a predominantly white music festival, OPPI KOPPI. 
The film is character driven with strong contemporary dialogue. I employed a dark comic palette while exploring many of the banal idiosyncrasies of daily life, the quirky entanglements of personal relations, and the over-the-top social taboos.
The characters reveal wry, ironic and subversive stories through their relationships with each other and the characters they interact with throughout the film. Many scenarios are drawn from their own experiences and are told in an unconventional, deconstructed style, which reflects the SA society of today. Many of the scenarios and relationships in the film were formulated over the two years that I have worked with the comedians.     
Shot on location (Johannesburg, the road trip and the Oppi Koppi festival) with steadicam/held hand cameras, we only used natural light. The film was unconventionally produced; eschewing traditional scripts in favour of detailed scene outlines from which the comics improvised. We employ a technique called "retro-scripting".
The urgency was to get a cast and crew together in three weeks and get to the OPPI KOPPI festival to take advantage of the thousands of festival goers and use them as the backdrop of the film. And thereby also give the film production value.   
The show's natural, quasi-documentary style, and the fact that David, Kagiso, Joey and Jason cope play "themselves", further blur the distinctions between fact and fiction.
The film has three very distinct acts. The first establishes our characters relationships with each other set against a gritty urban Johannesburg. The second is a road trip where these relations are tested, and the third is the resolution set against a music festival aesthetic.
People from different religions and ethnic groups living and surviving together are a contemporary reality. Especially in JHB, yet we don't often see this interaction reflected in South African cinema.

THE FILMMAKERS

JOHN BARKER - DIRECTOR, SCRIPTWRITER, PRODUCER
John Barker qualified as a graphic designer in 1996 at ML Sultan in Durban, after a stint in stop motion animation John's career took a new path. While working as a graphic designer in Cape Town, a friend recommended working on a film set. He immediately fell in love with the world of film and changed career paths. John has never looked back since and has developed into one of the most sought after young up and coming directors in the country. His unique vision has seen him directing various productions ranging from the comedy sketch show - The Pure Monate Show, to directing the prestigious South African Music Awards. John produced and directed SA's first music mockumentary, Blu Cheez. He has recently wrote and directed his first feature film, BUNNY CHOW know thyself.

KAGISO LEDIGA - ACTOR, PRODUCER
Born in Pretoria in 1978, and educated at the University of Cape Town, Kagiso Lediga is best known nationwide for his work as a stand-up comedian and actor. But his passion lies in filmmaking. He has a flair for writing brave and entertaining content and is working towards producing content that is going to shake up the South African film industry.  He has been touted as a prodigious talent and is on the verge of cementing himself as one of South Africa's hottest young talents. His greatest achievement thus far is producing, writing and performing in two seasons of his brainchild, The Pure Monate Show, a comedy sketch show commissioned by SABC 1. Kagiso recently produced and starred in his first feature film, BUNNY CHOW know thyself. 

SALAH SABITI - SCRIPTWRITER, ACTOR
Salah 'Black' Sabiti was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1978 and graduated from Rhodes University with a degree in Journalism in 2000. He worked at Red Pepper Pictures writing scripts for the entertainment programme Craz-E. He later moved to The Phat Joe Show where he first worked as a researcher and later as Head writer and content producer as well as website editor. He became Writer and Performer on The Pure Monate Show 2. His work appears in prolific publications including the urban youth publication Y-Mag. He also works as a film reviewer for Metro FM.

DAVID KIBUUKA - SCRIPTWRITER, ACTOR, COMEDIAN
David Kibuuka was born in Uganda on the 22^nd August 1980 and has lived in South Africa for most of his short but eventful life. He is a stand-up comic and writer with interests in film, music and business. He has performed as a stand-up comic in most of the comedy clubs in around Johannesburg as well as in theatres and in the corporate world. He was a writer and actor in both the first and second series of The Pure Monate Show. He attended Wits University where he obtained a B.Com (Hons.) degree in Insurance and Finance.

JOEY RASDIEN- SCRIPTWRITER, ACTOR, COMEDIAN
Joey Rasdien is the epitome of South African comedy today. His endearing stage persona is intellectually absurd, physically hysterical and visually beside himself. This belies his other profession… high-level fund management and financial advising. Joey has since become a scriptwriter and performer on the hit comedy sketch show, The Pure Monate Show, on SABC 1. He has starred in two feature films "DOLLARS AND WHITE PIPES" and the soon to be released "RUNNING RIOT".

PRODUCERS
Dog Pack Films is an independent film production company established in 2005 by John Barker and Kagiso Lediga, who aim to create quality content with universal audience appeal across a variety of media platforms. Dog Pack has endeavored to bring together some of the most dynamic young talent in South Africa under one roof to create superior content.
   
LEANNE CALLANAN has just completed her BA. Honours in Motion Picture Medium, majoring in producing. While studying her Honours' last year, she was part of the team that produced the feature film Bunny Chow. Callanan has gone on to open her own production company, Emzantsi Entertainment, based in Johannesburg.

MARILYN BARKER Executive Producer and Banker for Dog Pack, believed in Bunny Chow at its infant stage, before any one saw the light! To her we are all indebted…

Joel Phiri and Jeremy Nathan, two leading South African producers, have created two companies that focus on film finance and production in South Africa. Dv8 is their low budget local initiative that develops, finances, produces and distributes South African films, on High Definition digital video, with budgets under US$1.5m. Dv8 has produced four feature films, Forgiveness (2004), Max and Mona (2005), SMS Sugar Man (2006) and Bunny Chow (2006).  It is an intervention that brings together for the first time in Africa, government support, a national broadcaster, a national distributor/exhibitor and private finance - all South African entities. (Visit www.dv8.co.za).

IMG specializes in financing international co-productions that are produced partially or totally in Africa. (Visit www.imgfilms.com). IMG's focus is on commercial, challenging stories that are innovative and unique that will be suitable to be financed and produced in South Africa.

IMG has completed "Monsieur N" (Berlin Competition, 2002) and "Wah-Wah" (Opening nIght film, Edinburgh,Toronto, 2005). "The Flyer" (Locarno, 2005, Grand Piazza) by Revel Fox, and "Crazy Monkey" by Trevor Clarence.

MICHELLE WHEATLEY co-produced Bunny Chow on behalf of Dv8 Films, and has previously produced The Flyer by Revel Fox, production managed Max and Mona, and before that produced Channel O, Africa's 24 hour music channel on DSTV.

JEREMY NATHAN      EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Jeremy Nathan has been involved in the South African film and television industries for nearly twenty years. He has produced numerous features, television dramas, documentaries and short films. These include Boesman and Lena (with Danny Glover and Angela Bassett) by John Berry, Promised Land by Jason Xenopoulos, In a Time of Violence (aka The Line) by Brian Tilley, The Foreigner by Zola Maseko, The Quarry by Marion Hansel, Portrait of a Young Man Drowning by Teboho Mahlatsi, Husk, by Jeremy Handler, and Jump the Gun by Les Blair, and the Africa Dreaming series. He also produced the 5 hour documentary series, Ulibambwe Lingashoni (Hold up the Sun), an in-depth history of the ANC.
He is on the International Advisory Board of the Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR), SCRAWL (South African Scriptwriters Laboratory) and has consulted for the South African Department of Arts and Culture and the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) on film finance. He is a Board member of the Independent Producers Organization (IPO).

JOEL CHIKAPA-PHIRI      EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Joel Phiri is one of Africa's leading entrepreneurs in the film and television business. He has produced numerous feature films which include Ingrid Sinclair's Flame (selected Quinziane Des Realisateurs Cannes 1996), Ramadan Suleman's Fools, with JBA Productions, Jean Pierre Bekolo's Aristotle's Plot with JBA and The British Film Institute (BFI) and Idrrisa Ouedreago's Kini & Adams, which was selected for Official Competition of the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. Joel also has the distinction of having co-produced the ground breaking short film series Africa Dreaming and Mama Africa. Phiri has also produced the documentaries which include 13 part documentary series, African Renaissance, Rehad Desai's My Land My Life, and Francois Verster's A Lion's  Trail.
Phiri has been a key innovator in structuring film finance deals and has been involved in producing films such as Forgiveness, Max & Mona, The Flyer, Monsieur N, Crazy Monkey Straight outta Benoni. Wah Wah and SMS Sugarman
Phiri has served as a board member on numerous industry boards, including The Southern African, Film Festival, (SAFF), The Federation of Pan African Film Makers (FEPACI), The African Script Development Trust, (ASDF), The Independent Producers Organisation of South Africa (IPO) which and he served as Vice Chairperson. Phiri was also Chairperson of the Southern African Film & Television Market "Sithengi" for two years.

Bobby Allen, currently Head of Production at MTV Films Europe, has held senior executive positions in international film sales and acquisitions at companies such as PolyGram, Lions Gate Films and Mayfair Entertainment. He was MD of Lions Gate Film's UK office where he successfully developed and acquired a number of projects. Bobby was Head of Acquisitions at Film Four Limited where he managed and negotiated all acquisitions and co-productions and was production executive on a number of projects including 'Buffalo Soldiers' starring Ed Harris and Joaquin Phoenix for which he received an Associate Producer credit. Currently Bobby is developing a slate of projects for MTV Films Europe and is serving as producer on Dirty Sanchez: The Movie and Executive Producer on German production Cutting Edge.

MTV Films Europe
MTV Films Europe develops, produces, finances and acquires cutting edge films aimed at the MTV audience.  The company focuses on local language low budget films in the European territories. In the summer of 2004 MTVFE had a Number 1 box office smash in Spain with gross out comedy Isi & Disi starring Santiago Segura. The sequel Isi & Disi 2 will be released in Autumn 2006. MTVFE currently has two films in post production Dirty Sanchez: The Movie and Cutting Edge a German comedy produced by Razor Films. On the slate for 2007 is Faking It a teen comedy, Fela Kuti a music documentary and pot head slacker comedy Top Buzzer: A Dope Opera.

SWEDISH - SOUTH AFRICA CO-PRODUCTION
Dv8 Films and Film I Väst have worked together successfully on 3 previous films, Forgiveness by Ian Gabriel, Max and Mona by Teddy Mattera and The Flyer by Revel Fox.
Bunny Chow will be their fourth collaboration.
Sweden and South Africa have a long history of cultural collaboration, with a variety of Swedish organizations having support numerous cultural activities throughout the long struggle against apartheid. More recently, South Africa and Sweden have signed a cultural Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), designed to promote cultural exchange, and to move from aid to trade.

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