Jeff and I have been back in South Africa just over a month now and in some ways it feels like we never left. The heat and chaos of Cairo and Ramallah and the warm tropical waters of Sinai are starting to feel like a distant memory. Even more distant is the 1000’s of kilometers on the road through Africa. The women selling vetkoek from plastic containers they carry on their heads, chips fried next to the road and endless bicycles carrying everything from people and chickens to jerry cans and bread deliveries.
We have definitely entered into a new phase in our project. Things may be less exotic but it is no less challenging, stretching and fun. We arrived in South Africa still with a real desire to film the fictional short story that we want to incorporate in the documentary. Things didn’t work out to film it in Israel but we wanted to have another try in the familiar waters of Cape Town.
Our first month back has been spent organising meetings with any and everyone we could get to be interested, holding auditions, hounding potential actors and just generally putting ourselves out there. Jeff also had the opportunity to film a short promotional piece for the Sozo Foundation amidst the chaos, while I was able to get away for a week to visit my family in East London. The entire project has in many ways been stretching for both of us as neither of us are naturally “out there” personalities. But it is amazing to see what one is capable of and how God can fill the gaps when you are willing to take a shot at something you are not comfortable with.
We stepped off the aeroplane with an ambitious eight week schedule to find and cast actors as well as to shoot the short film and on our third day back went and selected a kitten from the SPCA. It seemed crazy even to me, but our little fur ball, Habibi, has been so much fun. With a month already down, we are very pleased to say that we have tracked down a cast that we are very happy with and whose paper work Habibi loves attacking. We also know that shooting is going to take longer than planned due to coordinating more than 10 different schedules; but we are over-joyed to see things taking shape. After all, what is an extra week or two in the span of nearly two years?
We are planning to complete the shooting of the short film in the month of August. We are incredibly excited and at the same time apprehensive to see how it turns out. There is obviously a lot of work still, between shooting, scouting and dressing locations, organising equipment and props and reworking the script. Hopefully by the end of August we will be done and then it will be on to Kenton-on-sea for the last leg of the journey, post production.
The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter slowly. We would again like to thank everyone who has supported us, followed us, prayed for us and helped us out in any way during this journey. It is greatly appreciated. Please continue to follow our progress and pray for us during this month of shooting as the film is not so far off now!
Finally Jeff will be preaching about fear and trust along our journey at The Bay Community Church in Muizenberg on Sunday 7 August. If you are interested please come through for the meeting, it starts at 9:30AM. We would love to see as many of you as possible.
