Story tells of a 16-year-old girl seeking the community's missing dog.
A neighbourhood dog, a missing brother and a 16-year-old detective with more grit than gadgets. That is the story at of Finding Optel.
It’s one of the featured local productions at this year’s Silwerskerm Festival and the debut entry of 25 year old Capetonian screenwriter, actress and director Mikhayla Brown. She’s the youngest director in this year’s pack of entries.
Brown co-directed the film with her brother, Jesse. She also stars as Claire Abrahams, the teen sleuth who hunts for lost things. When the community’s dog disappears, Claire takes on her biggest neighbourhood case, finding Optel aka the dog.
“I wanted to write a detective story through the eyes of a quirky girl,” Brown said. “The idea came from my grandfather’s pavement special dog called Optel. He was naughty, always chasing cars and I never liked him. But he stayed with me and the memories became the story.”
Born and bred in the Western Cape she spent part of her youth in Parow, later Durbanville. Film, or the performing arts for that matter, was always in her makeup.
“My brother and I made little movies on his old Samsung phone,” she said. “I was always busy with drama, choir and dance. Our family was very close too and that sense of togetherness also shaped me as a writer.”
Drama’s always been in her blood
She studied drama at Stellenbosch and completed an honours in creative writing. “I always loved acting but I didn’t know I would enjoy writing as much. During my honours I fell in love with it. That is when I wrote the first draft of Finding Optel.”
After graduating, Optel was shelved for a bit and she headed to theatre. Brown wrote and directed a play that travelled to festivals including KKNK and Voorkamerfees.
“Theatre gave me a strong foundation,” she said. “It taught me how to build characters and stories that work on stage, and that discipline carried through into film.”
She then went on to an internship at Thomas Films, a six-month programme that exposed her to a wide variety of African cinema.
“I had only known one kind of African film before then,” she said. “Suddenly I was learning about genres I didn’t know existed. It was eye-opening and made me want to stay in this world.”
Optel was eventually dusted off and completed. The Cape Flats, where parts of the story are set, was an important backdrop for Brown. She wanted to paint it differently.
“A lot of content about the Flats focuses only on gangsterism and poverty. That is true but it is not the whole story. I have family there and I see humour, life and hope. I wanted to show that. Optel tells the story through the eyes of a teenager and she sees the beauty of her community as well as the hardship to flesh out the narrative.”
Layered storytelling
Story telling, and with many layers at that, is what Brown enjoys. She lists celebrated narrators as her influences.
“Director Mike Leigh inspires me with the way he captures detail in ordinary lives. The art-house film Amélie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet showed me what whimsy can do cinematically and Wes Anderson’s use of colour and styled photography also influenced the look and feel of Optel.”
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She said that every element in a production must carry a measure of meaning and contribute to the overall narrative and emotional experience of the audience.
“I think about what the characters wear, how the shot looks, whether there is symbolism. Even the way a camera moves tells part of the story. Our director of photography on Optel got the vision immediately and we planned stylised shots and colour palettes that give the film its feel.”
The cast of the flick includes some heavy hitters. Oscar Petersen of Joe Barber, Zenobia Kloppers of Fiela se Kind, Rodney Goliath and Sherman Pharo from Arendsvlei, Maurice Carpede and Euodia Samson of Summertide, Elton Landrew of Spinners and Omar Adams of Barakat and The Umbrella Men.
The film was produced by Quanita Adams and Dominique Jossie of Blended Films, who last year won four Silwerskerm awards for Hier.Na.
Beyond Optel, Brown is already working on her next feature, a comedy drama about a father and son. “I love movies and I want to write across every genre. I think I will be a scriptwriter for a long time.”
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