Trump's film tantrum: Brandon Auret calls on Gayton McKenzie to invest in local films
'I'm a firm believer in that when the door is closed, jump through the window,' actor Brandon Auret told The Citizen.
Auret has called on Minister Gayton McKenzie to use Donald Trump's 100% tariffs on films made outside of the US, as an opportunity to invest in local film industry. Picture: brandon_auret/ Instagram
South African actor and filmmaker Brandon Auret has called on Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie to use Donald Trump's 100% tariffs on films made outside of the US as an opportunity to invest in the local film industry.
The US president recently proposed a 100% tariff on all foreign-produced content. If implemented, it would apply to locally made films, potentially even productions filmed here and series sold into the US.
'I'm a firm believer in that when the door is closed, jump through the window,' Auret told The Citizen.
Opportunity
Auret, who most South Africans were introduced to when he appeared on the SABC 3 soapie Isidingo as Leon du Plessis, said he doesn't blame Trump for his decision because it's always been much cheaper for foreign films to be made outside of the US.
Auret said the decision was however sad for the South African industry because not enough films are being made by locals.
'Hollywood screwed itself, especially with Los Angeles. The prices that they were paying to get location licenses, to get permits to be able to film in a studio- the executives screwed you over, it's not other countries, mister Donald Trump,' said Auret.
'The big money guys, they chased the films away. It became too expensive to shoot in Los Angeles.'
The South African actor said that if one takes a movie with a $10 million budget in the US and shoots it in South Africa, the conversion rate means the budget swells to at least R180 million.
'You could shoot the exact same quality film in South Africa, with our crew, our cast. It makes sense not to shoot in a country that's not overcharging you for everything.'
He said this was an opportunity for McKenzie to step up for the local film industry.
'Not just the sport side of it, but the arts and culture side of it. Get your mayors, councillors from different areas to put money into a film and let every place in South Africa become a film location,' expressed Auret.
'There's no backing. Nobody is doing a thing about the film industry, the DTIC and the NFVF has screwed over people,' Auret claimed.
The Citizen contacted McKenzie's office for comment, but was unsuccessful at the time of publishing. Any response will be included once received.
ALSO READ: SA's film success faces a Trump-sized threat
'No backing'
In March, members of the Independent Black Filmmakers Collective, Independent Producers Organisation and other industry players protested outside the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) offices in Tshwane, voicing growing concerns over the DTIC's failure to address critical issues impacting the industry.
In April, the South African Screen Federation (SASFED) criticised McKenzie for appointing National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) CEO Vincent Blennies.
'The minister's disregard for established rules and guidelines can harm the regulatory frameworks that have been put in place to ensure fair distribution of resources, transparency and effective governance in the sector,' read a statement from SASFED.
While addressing McKenzie as the minister, Auret called on mayors and politicians to invest in domestically-made films.
'Invest some of that money into filmmaking. Get those films to come over to your little town, little cities [and] shoot there, employ the locals,' said Auret.
He said the benefit is that it creates a whole ecosystem, including accommodation, food, and transport services.
The shooting of a film could involve as many as 180 people.
'The money spent on a film doesn't just go into the film; it's not like everything ends up on the screen. There's a lot of money spent outside of the film'
ALSO READ: South Africans make their presence felt at the Met Gala in New York
Tourism
Auret says there's a lucrative tourism factor when people shoot films across South Africa. The impact of cinema on tourism is enormous.
The fantasy film series The Lord of the Rings significantly contributed to New Zealand's GDP through tourism.
The series, which was filmed entirely down under, boosted tourism by about 50%, bringing in an estimated NZ$33 million (R600 M+) annually.
By 2018, New Zealand welcomed 3.6 million visitors annually, and tourism became the nation's largest export industry.
Auret said South Africa has more to offer tourists than the country's three biggest metros, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban.
'My whole big thing is not just about making films, not just about investing in the communities that are in those cities, but opening up the tourism. Getting people to go 'wow, that movie was shot where?''
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For some, while that was read as a pushback against the new, all-race, democratic dispensation in South Africa, Leon would certainly have insisted, au contraire, it was a principled, succinct protest against the growing corruption, the lack of effective government administration and policing, and floundering efforts to build a strong economy and nurture job creation. But that is now old news. We have all moved on. Youngish elder Leaving Parliament, Leon served as South Africa's ambassador to Argentina — on behalf of an ANC government, nogal. More recently, he has moved away from government service and joined the corporate world. But earlier this year, the DA was poised to become a key element of the new Government of National Unity (GNU), as the ANC's faltering lock on national politics and the electorate had made one-party government impossible to maintain. 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It seems entirely reasonable that such views were strengthened as he observed the glowing embers of Peronism when he was South Africa's ambassador in Argentina. Collectively, thoughts like these can easily be read as a critique of the current leaders in the Middle East. The second part of the book plays off Jesse Unruh's crisp summing up of the inevitable mix of money and politics: 'Money is the mother's milk of politics.' Unruh was a major figure in California state politics for decades, and he is on target, although there are occasionally other nutritional elements in that mix as well. (My favourite novel of politics is Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men. There, Warren added the inevitability of sex as the third leg of the political triangle along with money and the temptations of power, although Leon left that third element out of his equation.) In this section, several chapters recount his fraught fundraising experiences for his party — especially since in the early days of the new dispensation, the Progressive Party/PFP/DP/DA was a minnow in a smallish pond that was also inhabited by a large shark. Another chapter includes a dissection of the public saga of Ronnie Kasrils, an approach that may have been encouraged by Kasrils' cheerleading for the Hamas militants in their 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. (Leon's spouse is Israeli-born born and Kasrils' language clearly infuriated Leon.) As Leon tells it, through the years of the South African liberation struggle, in exile, Kasrils had quietly been receiving a retainer from his brother-in-law, a prominent businessman in South Africa. But after Kasrils' comments on the 7 October massacre, that tap closed. Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold, and so it has been served. Complex negotiations For many readers — those interested in the negotiations for the birthing of the GNU, and even more so, commentators and historians of South Africa's contemporary politics — Leon's detailed description of the complex negotiations between the ANC and the DA, together with some other parties leading to the formation of the GNU will be of genuine interest. Leon kept a diary throughout this entire engagement, and almost 100 pages of his book form a narrative built on those diary entries. In the future, it will be an important source for evaluations of those negotiations. Leon's recollections will be read together with those of all the others who participated in the negotiations, after they write their versions. The remaining pages of Being There include short essays on the successes and failures of FW de Klerk, Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Nelson Mandela. There is also a series of more personal reminiscences, labelled by the author as The Nostos. These include a deconstruction of the false charge that Leon's father had been responsible for sentencing the ANC operative Solomon Mahlangu to death years ago. In particular, Leon's experiences as an ambassador in Argentina during the desperate days in that country's last (so far) Peronista regime are particularly interesting, as Leon positions them as a cautionary tale of what happens when a country augers towards the ground economically and politically. Of special interest to this reader (because of his own experiences) were Leon's non-specialist but trenchant observations on Japan after visiting there. Japan has surmounted its World War 2 experience (and managed to put much of the resulting horrors aside), even as it continues to embrace many ancient traditions together with its contemporary political and economic policies designed for the benefit of a majority of its citizens. Beyond the book, our conversation also covered other topics, key among them being the current difficulties between the US and South Africa. I ask Leon who he thinks should be South Africa's ambassador to the US, or, perhaps, what kind of person should they be? Leon observes that the ambassadorial role has been diminished over the years (the recent presidents' meeting had no ambassadors present from either nation, as would usually have been the case in a meeting between two national presidents). Beyond the traditional diplomatic roles, more and more, Leon says, the job of an ambassador is to be their country's chief salesperson, instead of one of those old-style diplomats. Any new South African ambassador assigned to Washington will have a difficult policy to sell, especially given the two countries' Middle East positions. A key question now is that the Trumpian dog whistle to its Maga constituents is over DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and, by extension, over South Africa's Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment policies. Speculating in the immediate wake of the presidential meeting, he notes that the approach of a possible equity equivalent for Starlink operations in South Africa may lead to changing the discussion. (Of course, crime is something that is always in the air in any discussions about South Africa, and it came up in that presidents' meeting as well. It was instructive, per Leon, that rebuttals about crime in that meeting came from a white South African billionaire.) We turn to the often-repeated accusation that the DA has a problem with black leaders. Leon responds that it is unfair to call every black leader's departure from DA leadership roles a failure of black leadership in the party. People leave political bodies for many reasons. However, he adds that the party needs to make it easier and more enticing for expatriated South Africans to return to the country and make real contributions. What of the DA's future? Leon says he is most interested in matters of policy rather than party management, as he is no longer an officer-holder. He believes that by being in the GNU, the DA has improved its legitimacy and prospects with many people. Its participation in the GNU has made it more 'kosher,' so to speak, and it may well gain further traction. He thinks that if the DA can maintain this trend, it will grow even as the ANC continues to make further reversals in support. The key question, of course, is how he views South Africa's future. Leon argues that most countries, except for places like Afghanistan or Sudan, don't explode or disintegrate. He acknowledges that there still is a lot of ruin in South Africa, but citizen action is stepping forward wherever it can. Taken as a whole, Leon seems cautiously optimistic about the country's future prospects, regardless of its current problems and its challenges. DM
