Bunny Chow On DVD

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 from 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-fulfilment 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 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 epitomises aimlessness, and they 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.

Set in Johannesburg, 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, Oppikoppi.

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 South African 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 Oppikoppi festival) with Steadicam / handheld 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 employed a technique called “retro-scripting”.

The urgency was to get a cast and crew together in three weeks and to get to the Oppikoppi 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 blurs 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 Johannesburg, yet we don’t often see this interaction reflected in South African cinema.