"Fana Mokoena gives an engrossing performance" – IndieWire

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Cast Biographies

BOBEDI – Fana Mokoena

Fana Mokoena is best known in South Africa for his lead roles in the television series Yizo Yizo, Generations and The Lab. His biggest film role to date is the supporting role of General Bizimingu in the 2004 film, Hotel Rwanda (directed by Terry George). Fana has also had supporting roles in films such as Blood Diamond (directed by Edward Zwick), and Dangerous Grounds, and Jump the Gun.

BOY-BOY – Presley Chweneyagae

Presley Chweneyagae is a South African actor best known for his starring role in the film Tsotsi by director Gavin Hood, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards. Presley made is TV acting debut in 2000 in Orlando for SABC TV. He was also cast as The Poet in the 2006 mini-series, When We Were Black, by Khalo Matabane. In 2007, Presley starred in the feature film, More Than Just A Game by Junaid Ahmed.

MICHAEL – Vusi Kunene

Vusi Kunene’s television and film career has developed widely in the past two decades. In 1996, he was cast in Homelands directed by Neal Sundstrom, in 1997, Deafening Silence directed by Etienne De Villiers, and in 1998 he was cast in Justice for All directed by Peter Goldsmid for which he won an Avanti award for Best Actor. In 1996, he was cast in two feature films, Fools directed by Ramadan Suleman and Kini et Adams directed by Idrissa Ouedraogo. 1998 saw A Reasonable Man directed by Gavin Hood and The King Is Alive directed by Kristian Levring. Later, film roles included Final Solution and Diamond Hunters.

OJ – Neo Ntlatleng

Neo Ntlatleng has recently graduated in a Bachelor of Motion Picture Medium degree at AFDA where he focused on directing, but is also a well-rounded performer. He has since been involved in television series like 90 Plein Street, The Mines, Zone 14 and Justice for All as well as theatre productions Footballers for Life, The Lie of the Mine and Foot Prints on Keys. He also appeared in the feature film Odyssey.

MAMSY – Harriet Manamela

Harriet Manamela‘s television career started in 1998. She has featured in television series such as Soul City, Isidingo, Yizo Yizo II, Justice for All II and III, Zero Tolerance, Soul Buddyz, Behind the Badge and When We Were Black. Her film experience includes Life, Above All, Dr Lucille, Hijack Stories, and Yesterday. She has also appeared in international movies Country of My Skull, Hotel Rwanda and Catch A Fire.

Crew Biographies

Khalo Matabane – DIRECTOR/WRITER

Khalo Matabane was born in South Africa and has directed numerous television documentaries, including Young Lions (2000), Love in the Time of Sickness (2002), and the feature documentaries Story of a Beautiful Country (2004) and Conversations on Sunday Afternoon (2006). He directed the 4 x 52 minute television drama series, When We Were Black (2008), set during the Soweto student uprisings of 1976. State of Violence is his first fiction feature film.

Jeremy Nathan – PRODUCER

Jeremy Nathan has been involved in the South African film and television industry for nearly twenty five years. He has produced numerous features, television dramas, documentaries and short films. He has lectured in many local institutions and written widely about the industry.

Michelle Wheatley – PRODUCER

Michelle graduated from the AFDA Film School in 1998. She joined Devereaux-Harris, producing numerous music videos, documentaries, and live shows for Channel O. For DV8 Films, she production managed Max and Mona and produced The Flyer. Michelle has produced the world’s first feature film shot on mobile phones, SMS Sugar Man, and co-produced John Barker’s Bunny Chow. Michelle has recently been made MD of DV8 Films.

Moroba Nkawe – Line Producer

Moroba Nkawe completed a BComm Degree in Economics at the University of Cape Town in 2002. She then entered the film and television industry working in various aspects of production. In 2005 she studied Producing at AFDA. She has worked on various commercials, TV Series (Jozi-H) and feature films, including Country of My Skull. She was production manager on DV8’s Izulu Lami and line producer on Shirley Adams.

Eva Franzen -1^st Assistant Director

After getting her start as a Production Coordinator in Germany, Eva moved to Los Angeles in 1993 where she attended film school at UCLA. Afterwards, she worked her way up the ladder and started working as a 1st Assistant Director in 1996. She joined the Directors Guild of America in 2000. In 2003, a project brought her to South Africa and she fell in love with the country. She moved to Cape Town in 2004 and is now working as a 1st Assistant Director and Production Manager in both commercials and feature films.

Matthys Mocke – Director of Photography

After completing a Fine Arts degree Matthys studied Theory of Film at the University of Cape Town. He taught lighting and camera at the Wits Dramatic School of Arts and City Varsity. He has been Director of Photography on numerous Drama series, documentaries and music videos since 1984. He has also been D.O.P on three features like Long Street, Jezile and Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon. In 2002 he received two shared NTVA Stone Awards for camera work and lighting for the productions “Bread and Water” and “Guilty”. In 2007 he received the Golden Horn Award for Director of Photography for the drama series “When We Were Black”.

Audrey Maurion – Editor

Audrey Maurion is a French film editor who works on documentary films with Eyal Sivan (The Specialist, Road 181, Jaffa, The orange’s clockwork), Christopher Otzenberger, David Rosanis, Philippe Lainé and on fiction films with Julien Sicard, Laure Marsac, Bertrand Bonello and Mathieu Amaric.

She work with Khalo on Conversation on a Sunday Afternoon, When we were Black and State of Violence. She is also the co-director with Eyal Sivan of a documentary selected in the Berlinale 2004 “I love you all”.

Jim Petrak – Sound Designer and Co-Sound Mixer

Jim Petrak is South Africa’s most prolific and experienced ADR recording engineer and 5.1 surround sound mixer specializing in Dolby digital for film. Jim has mixed many full length features, short features, documentary features, television features and mini-series. He’s worked on many local and international projects with directors such as Bronwen Hughes on Stander, Darrel Roodt on Lullaby and Yesterday, Terry George on Hotel Rwanda, Philip Noyce on Catch A Fire, Tom Hopper on Red Dust, Leon Schuster on Mama Jack and Gavin Hood on the Oscar-winning film, Tsotsi, among many others.

Xavier Thieulin – (Paris) Sound Mixer

After completing his studies in music and cinema, Xavier had the opportunity to work at Dovidis, a firm in Paris, based on two 5.1 studios used for both TV and Film. He started out as a technical manager where he worked on 50 films but he used this experience to learn from some of the most famous French recording mixers. Xavier is currently focusing on mixing feature films and loves to work on this very special material.

Movie info

State of Violence

The past is another country

Synopsis

Bobedi is the newly appointed CEO of a large mining company but his wife is murdered during the celebrations. Frustrated by the pace of justice, Bobedi decides that revenge is his only option. But when he catches the murderer, Bobedi comes face to face with a terrible secret that connects them across time and history.

More...

The film tells a story of a man who has gained the world but lost his soul. A man who, like the biblical figure Saul, is struck by lightning and his journey changes. He was blind and deaf, and slowly, as he goes on the journey, he begins to see and hear.

Bobedi, our protagonist, has lived in denial and refuses to acknowledge his past. So far it has worked for him. Memory and the past frighten him. OJ is a symbol of that memory, because by attacking Bobedi and killing his wife, he is a symbol that represents his past.

Bobedi does not only want to kill OJ because he killed Joy, but more importantly, because OJ forces him to engage and acknowledge his past. Bobedi wants to kill OJ so he can kill his past. What OJ does, that he is not aware of, is that by killing Joy, the sacrificial lamb, he is actually helping Bobedi to regain his soul.

The film is really about men: two generations of men who cannot articulate their emotions, who don’t take responsibility for lives, and use violence as a way of resolving issues. But ultimately both learn about forgiveness.

Bobedi is a walking ghost. He is a man without a shadow. His shadow grows as he finds himself.

During Bobedi’s pursuit for OJ, he realises that OJ is him when he was young – his angst and pain. He recognizes that by forgiving OJ, he is in fact forgiving himself or part of himself.

The men in these films are wounded and the women are the bandages. They hide their scars. When Joy is killed, Bobedi’s scars open.