Skin is a South African success story. The offi cial co-production, directed by American-born Anthony Fabian, and starring Sam Neill (Daybreakers) and Sophie Okonedo (The Secret Life of Bees) in the leading roles details just one of the tragic stories from our country’s tempestuous past.

Skin tells the true-life story of Sandra Laing, a dark-skinned child born to white Afrikaans parents. Despite Sandra’s mixed-race appearance, her parents raise her as white, but trouble arises when her school complains that she doesn’t belong and the State reclassifies her as Coloured. The story sparks international outrage and her father fights to have the classification reversed. But Sandra realises that she will never be accepted and elopes with a black man, estranging herself from her family.

Skin will be released locally on 22 January 2010, but so far reactions have been positive. The film has won Audience Awards at the Afrika Film Festival in Belgium, AFI Dallas, the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles and Film Fest DC in Washington DC, as well as the First Film Award at Time for Peace. It also won Best South African feature film at the Tri-Continental film festival. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert called it a “great film.”

First-time director Anthony Fabian first heard the story of Sandra Laing in July 2000 on BBC’s Radio 4. He says, “British journalist Peter White had gone to South Africa to interview Sandra and her testimony left me stunned. For days afterwards, I had a lump in my throat when I thought about her story and realised it had the potential to touch people around the world as a feature film. I also felt a tremendous sense of outrage that, after all she had been through, Sandra was still living in abject poverty, while her white family had prospered. I felt compelled to make some kind of reparation, and thought a film might help provide her with long-term financial security.”

With the help of South African journalists, Anthony tracked down Sandra in the East Rand’s Tsakane township, and six weeks after hearing the interview managed to secure the rights to the project. “When I boarded the plane back to London, armed with the rights to bring her story to the widest possible public, I knew this was the start of a very exciting adventure.”

During script development, Anthony approached Miramax Books, an imprint of Miramax Films, to adapt Sandra’s life into a biography. Oprah Magazine contributor Judith Stone came on board to write the book and the proceeds of When She Was White enabled Sandra to buy a home in Johannesburg.

Anthony had been joined by Genevieve Hofmeyr of Moonlighting Films and Margaret Matheson of Bard Entertainments and shooting began in September 2007.

The team had to cover over 50 South African locations in 42 days, choosing Remhoogte in Johannesburg as their base. Anthony says, “The hairs went up on the back of my neck: it looked exactly like the original Laing farm, 300 kilometres away in Mpumalanga (then known as the Eastern Transvaal) – but this location was infinitely more practical, as our crew and equipment would be coming from the big city.” Like many films shot in South Africa, Skin was affected by our unpredictable weather - during shooting there was a freakish number of electrical storms.

The set became embedded in mud, many cars got stuck, and the cast and crew had to be rescued by unit manager Beatle van Graan in his 4x4. The director started fearing that there wouldn’t be enough dry hours to shoot exteriors.

Anthony says the most daunting scene as a first-time director was the forced removal, which involved hundreds of extras, animals, and period bulldozers. Cameraman Dewald Aukema’s suggestion to use special FX smoke saved the day. The entire sequence was completed in a day and a half, with the film completed on time and on budget.

Genevieve Hofmeyr says the project was extremely meaningful. “We were producers on the film since the early draft phase. We spent six years working with Tony Fabian and Margaret Matheson.“

To help raise financing for a film by a first-time feature film director, they made a short promo. Genevieve says, “We just did a couple of the pivotal scenes, which gave a good indication of what the film was about. It really helped.”

Roughly 50% of the budget was raised in South Africa, with funding coming from the Industrial Development Corporation, the Department of Trade and Industry, and The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF).

The NFVF have decided to distribute Skin themselves, the first time the organisation has taken such a decision. NFVF’s head of new ventures, Ryan Haidarian, says it was while the organisation was as- DVD deals that he thought he could spend some money on theatrical and control the rights.

As a distributor the NFVF will be working with UIP and Next Video. “The only thing we will be doing on our own is TV and airline sales.” Ryan is unhappy with the effort local distributors have put into marketing South African films. He explains, “We stopped our relationship with Ster Kinekor when Helen Khun left in the midst of our planning. In the case of Nu Metro, the distributor doesn’t really expect local films to do well. We subsidised Nu Metro’s marketing efforts for the film Drum in excess of what Nu Metro wanted to spend. Why would you spend more than you expect to get in returns? In my experience Jeruselema and White Wedding did spectacularly well.”

Ryan says the NFVF can bring a lot to the table that a traditional distributor cannot, especially in terms of PR. He says he wants to get the film on to as many screens as possible and run a campus as well as a school outreach program.

The NFVF can bring in R2-3 million in PR a month. Ryan says the NFVF didn’t want their first film to be a non-SA film and Skin fitted the mould perfectly. “I am heartened by the audience awards Skin has received. The film strikes a chord with audiences and sparks dialogue. That’s why we chose it.” Watch the Skin trailer here.

Sally Fink