The Silver Fez | |
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Directed by | Lloyd Ross |
Screenplay by | Rian Malan |
Produced by | Joëlle Chesselet |
Cinematography | Lloyd Ross |
Edited by | Lloyd Ross |
Music by | Warrick Sony |
Release date |
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Running time | 83 minutes |
Country | South Africa |
The Silver Fez is a 2009 South African documentary feature film directed by Lloyd Ross.
The story tells of Kaatji Davids, a house painter who lives in Cape Town. He is very poor, with only an old banjo as a musical instrument, but he and a few close friends dream of beating the wealthy Hadji Bucks, undisputed champion of Cape Malay music. The prize is the Silver Fez, the " Holy Grail" of Cape Town's Islamic subculture. The contest involves thousands of musicians and a wide variety of tunes. [1] [2]
The Silver Fez (the name deriving from the fez, a type of felt hat worn by Malay men in the Cape) is a competition of all-male choirs from the Malay community. [3]
The film explores identity and marginalisation among the Cape Coloureds (of which the Cape Malays are a sub-group): the narrator, Mac, says: "You know, for my people, the so-called Cape coloureds of Cape Town, many of us feel like we are lost in a no-man’s-land between Europe and Asia, unsure of where we fit in". It also shows the feeling of belonging that the men have in the choirs. [3]
The music originates from the days of slavery in South Africa, and the "Nederlandslied", a type of song that combines quarter-note vocal solos found in Arabic music with Western instrumental tunes. The lyrics have stayed the same. [3]
The Silver Fez was directed by Lloyd Ross, who was a composer before moving into filmmaking. He founded the anti-apartheid record label Shifty Records in 1983, and then began making music videos for some of the musicians before starting to make documentary films in the mid 1990s. [2]
The film, 83 minutes long, was made in colour using an HDCAM, and uses both the South African English and Afrikaans languages. [2]
The film was nominated for or won the following awards at various film festivals in 2009:
In 2010, The Silver Fez was nominated for the Golden Horn for Best Documentary Feature at South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTA). [4]