Irène Jacob and South African actress Thishiwe Ziqubu are attached to star in Saturn, a supernatural thriller which would be the first official Australia-South Africa co-production.
African-born, UK-based Elan Gamaker is the writer-director and the co-producers are Mark Overett’s New Holland Pictures Two and Fireworx Media’s Bridget Pickering, who was one of the producers of Hotel Rwanda.
Set in South Africa in the 1980s, the screenplay follows Patience (Zigubu) a young African woman who is asked to babysit two white children by her mother, who is campaigning against Apartheid.
Jacob (Three Colors: Red, The Double Life of Véronique) will play the children’s French mother, while a high-profile Aussie is in talks to play her husband.
The twist: the ghost of the children’s older brother Ben, an Army conscript who was reported to have died, tries to take them away.
Overett, who recently returned from a recce in Cape Town and Johannesburg, tells IF an Australian will play Ben and a casting search is underway for African actors to play the children.
The plan is to shoot in Cape Town in the first half of 2016, with most of the funding from state bodies in South Africa. Berlin-based Films Boutique is the international sales agent.
Cutting Edge will handle the post and VFX and reinvest part of its fees. Overett is pitching the project to Australian distributors.
The producer met Pickering in Cannes three years ago at a “speed-dating” session for Kiwi and South African producers organised by Graeme Mason when he was CEO of the NZFC.
Pickering pitched two scripts, Saturn and Chemo Club, a heist comedy which is now in post production. “I liked both but we agreed to advance with Saturn first,” Overett tells IF.
“Bridget, Elan and I have been batting the script back and forth since then. At Cannes this year Elan and I pitched the project to various sales agents and potential government stakeholders."
Screen Queensland has supported the development. The budget is $2.1 million. This will be Gamaker’s third feature. He made his debut in 2010 with Visa/Vie, the saga of a French-Moroccan woman who is caught working illegally in a Cape Town restaurant and is given 48 hours to find a husband to avoid having to leave the country. His second, Dutch-language psychological drama Ijspaard (Icehorse), was released last year.
Overett says Saturn will be marketed in South Africa as the country's first ever ghost story; in Australia it will be sold more as a drama with thriller overtones.