Rural Community Thriller ‘Snake’ Shows How Streamer Support Makes Smaller South African Stories Possible

variety.com:

Thinus Ferreira Guest Contributor South African rural community thriller “Snake,” the closing film of the 6th Joburg Film Festival, is a feature that wouldn’t have been made if it wasn’t for streamer money.

Based on the heart-wrenching 2011 book by Tracey Farren, who also penned the screenplay, a powerless farm girl Stella, played by 9-year-old Lamiyah Barnard, becomes the only one who can stop a smarmy and mysterious interloper who arrives with a flute and dazzles everyone in a rural town, hiding his nefarious intent while going on a killing spree. “Snake” will play on two streamers and was made with pre-license funding from both: eMedia and e.tv’s eVOD in South Africa and Amazon’s Prime Video.

Shot in rural South Africa with painfully beautiful scenes of poverty and decay, the Known Associates Entertainment production was lensed over seven and a half weeks near Atlantis, Malmesbury and Philadelphia in the Western Cape province.

Director Meg Rickards of Boondogle Films tells Variety the story “has been on my radar for a long time.” “Farren also wrote ‘Tess,’ which was another film I made for kykNET, so I knew Tracey well by now. ‘Snake’ started off its life as a screenplay.