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Some men fight the war, others fight the ROCK.'
In late 1999, AFDA, The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance embarked on one of their typically ambitious projects- the development and production of a full-length 35mm feature film made by 4th year honours graduates.
A fatal rock-burst at the African Rainbow Gold mine in the Orange Free State (a province in South Africa) and the subsequent heroics and triumphant rescue of the survivors, filled the daily headlines and provided the spark for the film Soldiers of the Rock- a movie which takes place in the deepest, darkest, hottest and most dangerous underground mine in the world.
Various back-end deals and joint ventures were entered into with the Sasani Group (M.C.C. Videolab and FilmLab) for high-end equipment, laboratory costs and print and final mix requirements (Chris Fellows). A deal was struck with local broadcaster M-Net, who provided the production capital for the film. A further grant from the Hubert Bals Fund created a 93 minute digital 5.1 surround sound 35mm feature film for under a million bucks!
The heads of department where chosen from 4th Year Honours students and include: Norman Maake, Director and Co Writer, Darren Gordon, Producer, Natalie Haarhof, Director of photography, Marc Echstein, Soound Designer and Benjamin Willem as Music Composer.
Support crews were drawn from the second, third and fourth year group as well as actors from the Live Performance degree for what would become (due to the extensive training required on set) an uncompromising sixteen week principal photography phase.
Under the guidance of two of AFDA'S founding directors Bata Passchier, Writer and Editor and Garth Holmes, Executive Producer, the toil, labour and reality of making a feature film set in. Four long years later, Soldiers of the Rock has finally emerged to make its International premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (Planet Africa) in early September- a historical first for a South African student production and indeed a rare worldwide occurrence for a student feature film.
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