 |
Writer/director Darrell James Roodt has directed some of the most acclaimed films to come from his native South Africa, including "Place of Weeping", "Sarafina!" and "Cry, the Beloved Country."
HBO:
What was your inspiration for Yesterday?
 |
Director Darrell Roodt on the set of Yesterday.
|
Darrell Roodt:
Well, I think AIDS is such an important
topic in Africa, and I don't think that there
are many movies that reflect what's actually
going on there.
HBO:
How does Yesterday differ from your other
films?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I don't think
that this is a political film. I think it's more
of a socially aware film. However, it's still
full of political ramifications. |
|
|
|
— Darrell Roodt
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Darrell Roodt:
The other films I made about South
Africa, in South Africa, have been, well, I
guess more political than social because
that was always happening in our country
then. This is like ten years after the new
South Africa, and it just occurred to me,
over the last couple of years, why don't you
make more films with a real strong social
conscience, as opposed to a political
conscience. And all films in South Africa have got a political conscience anyway, because that's the state of affairs. But I just don't know.
What I really want to do is get into the mind
of someone in South Africa, like a rural
villager. So she's got AIDS. How does she
deal with that? Yes, it's a political question
as well, because the politics in South Africa
have created this environment that we live
in, but it's beyond that. And I don't think
that this is a political film. I think it's more
of a socially aware film. However, it's still
full of political ramifications. But the
crucial difference, is that it's a social issue,
a very important issue that needs to be
addressed, urgently.
HBO:
Why did you choose a rural setting as
opposed to a city as the backdrop?
|
 |
|
Director Darrell Roodt lining up a shot.
|
Darrell Roodt:
Well, I think the typical picture of South
Africa is the ghetto, or the inner city, or the
city, so I just thought it would be fascinating
to go into the heart and mind of a rural
person. I mean, it's a key image for us in
South Africa, when you're driving in the
middle of nowhere, there's a long, straight,
dusty road, and there's a lone figure walking
up the road. You always think, well, who is
that person, where's he or she going? And, I
mean, it's fascinating, so I thought, wow,
gotta make a film about a person like that,
just an ordinary person and how they deal
with issues in their life.
HBO:
The film brings to the fore the vibrant
legacies brought about by the spread of
AIDS. What are your thoughts on this?
Darrell Roodt:
Things are changing. People are becoming
aware in Southern Africa as to what's going,
what's causing AIDS. So I think that is
changing to a large degree, but I was still
trying to make a film that does show the
impact on it. Here we have a rural woman
in a little village in the middle of nowhere.
Her husband's working as a miner, and he's
away from home for six months, and boys
will be boys, and one thing leads to another.
And it's very scary what happens. You
know, AIDS is easily contracted. And he
brings it home and gives it to her, and it's
just one of those kind of stories; it's a very
sad fact about what's happening in South
Africa right now in terms of migrant labor.
The way it comes from the city into the rural
areas and spreads. It's insidious. It's just
sad and tragic. But there's a lot of mine education awareness going on where they test and
educate the miners about unprotected sex.
So it is changing, it's a big hill to go over,
but they're getting there.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, I suppose on one level I'm just trying
to humanize the story about AIDS. I'm just
trying to show this is an ordinary person, a
beautiful human being who's just trying to
live her life, and she, unfortunately,
contracts a disease, and how she has to deal
with it. |
|
|
|
— Darrell Roodt
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HBO:
Yesterday and her husband are rejected by
the village, and they're forced to live in the
outskirts. Will the film attempt to
destigmitize AIDS?
Darrell Roodt:
Well, I suppose on one level I'm just trying
to humanize the story about AIDS. I'm just
trying to show this is an ordinary person, a
beautiful human being who's just trying to
live her life, and she, unfortunately,
contracts a disease, and how she has to deal
with it, so I really hope that the film does
illuminate that, that it humanizes the whole
issue of AIDS, that it's not just something
on the outskirts. In this case, it's just a
beautiful, average, normal person getting it,
who had to deal with it, and maybe it'll have
relevance to people in that situation, and
thus destigmitize it. But this is not a message movie by any
stretch of the imagination. This hasn't got
any answers in it. This is just a story about
a simple person in a very difficult
environment, and how she has to deal with
it. So it's not a message movie. It's very
important to understand that, because
movies can't solve the problems of the
world. But they can stimulate dialogue and
awareness. Yesterday is not going to solve
the AIDS crisis in South Africa, but
hopefully it'll be a little stick into making us
understand it more.
HBO:
Is Yesterday your statement against the
AIDS epidemic?
 |
Director Darrell Roodt discusses a scene with Leleti Khumalo (Yesterday).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's a
film about the heart and mind of an
ordinary person trying to survive against an
extraordinary circumstance. |
|
|
|
— Darrell Roodt
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Darrell Roodt:
The sad thing about AIDS is it's such an
insidious disease that it attacks everyone.
And what I really wanted to make was even
beyond everyman, I wanted to make the
rural everyman. Here's a person who's got
nothing. You live in the middle of nowhere,
and suddenly you get AIDS. How do you
deal with that? It's very, very hard, and it's
very tragic, and it's very tough. It's one thing to be in the city, and you've
got access to medicine, but in the rural
areas you've got access to nothing. And
you just have to live out of sheer courage,
out of the will to stay alive, wow. How you
can deal with that if you've got nothing. It's
all in the mind. It's all in the heart, it's a
film about the heart and mind of an
ordinary person trying to survive against an
extraordinary circumstance. This is a film
about courage, and about how you can
triumph against adversity, extreme
adversity.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Get Involved
Learn more about GBC, the pre-eminent organization leading the business community's fight against HIV/AIDS.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
