tsimong confident about gay films

By Nthateng Mhlambiso (BTM Senior Reporter)

March 14, 2007: Brenda Fassie’s former dancer and choreographer Fanney Tsimong had more than just dreams and ambitions – meaning to go even beyond the stage.

Having spent seven years working with the late Fassie, Tsimong today entered the film scenes as director.

The twenty seven-year-old Tsimong is a household name among those who worked with him when he won the Raw Talent Award at the Multichoice Vuka Awards in 2003 for his documentary, Everybody’s responsibility, when still teething.

Tsimong was last year (in an annual Mail & Guardian newspaper competition known as 101 that started only last year for young promising South Africans) spotted among a tough competition.

It all started when still a greenhorn in 1999 when he saw an advert about the Out in Africa gay and lesbian film festival, and wanted to enter the festival without formal training but only passion.

“Nodi introduced me to Underdog Film – multimedia entertainment company where I was mentored”, he said.

Hungry for experience in the film industry, Tsimong made a commitment to work for as many production houses as possible that included Create SA. From then he produced films and documentaries such as A page from my journal (2003), Power of rain, Bull’s eye, Mountain shade (all 2004) and Silenced (2005) which were screened locally and overseas.

In 2005 he created and produced Somizi Mhlongo’s 13 series talk show called Intimate Connection.

Black Beulahs is Tsimong’s current work presently showing at Out in Africa gay and lesbian film festival. “I had to come up with a catchy name for my documentary in order to attract the audience. Beulah means something beautiful, so it means beautiful black people”, he vaunted when asked to define what it meant.

When he explained where the idea came from, Tsimong said; “It was in 1999 when I watched Somizi Mhlongo performing at Skykline Night Club (in Hillbrow at Simon Nkoli’s Corner) as Madam Gigi. I loved his performance and I wished that we could have something like that on TV. I also wanted to break the fact that gay people were isolated by the media most of the times.”

He continued that, “I then told my idea to the SABC who agreed to commission the film and I started working on Black Beulahs in 2002 until 2006.

“The movie is about being gay and successful and living in Soweto. It follows the lives of three gay men Somizi as Gigi, a performer, a dancer and a talk show host, Hunky Chix, a body builder and DK, a funeral parlour director. It also captures the events of the Johannesburg Gay Pride 2006.”
 
The Soweto-born acknowledges that his work has its own shortfalls despite that he traveled the world that include Germany, Asia, Brazil and New York.

He says the challenges are that he had to cope with homophobic people, try to satisfy gay people who are sometimes difficult very difficult to do and attract strenuous funders especially coming to gay films.
 
Openly out gay, Tsimong, says the challenges affecting homosexuals in the country are that; “The support structure for gay people in South Africa is limited. It can only go as far as listening to their problems and giving them counseling. After that they are on their own, it would be important to have organisations that are willing to employ or provide work-experience to gay people.”

Tsimong’s documentary is showing at the Film Festival taking place in Hyde Park in Johannesburg until18 March. The festival starts on 15 March in Cape Town and ends on 1 April 2007.