Of Good Report is the movie that everybody has been talking about lately; but sadly because of the fact that it was banned, rather than for critical acclaim. We felt pretty passionately about it, as you can see from our post yesterday, and today we’re bringing you more coverage of the matter. We spoke to lead actress of the film, Petronella Tshuma, to really get a feel of the atmosphere inside the camp.
And needless to say the mood is one of frustration and anger. She kicks off our chat by telling us of how hectic things have been this week. “ Right now life has been crazy! It’s been incident after incident ever since Thursday when we found out the film was going to be banned. It’s still taking time to sink in. Even though it’s everywhere in headlines and everything”
And the news has been dominating the headlines left, right and center. We were silly enough to ask if she agreed with the decision to ban the film. To which she promptly replied, “You’re right. That IS a silly question” Excuse us Petronella!
“But I mean, I wouldn’t have taken the film on if I thought there was something wrong with it.”
Petronella is passionate and standing true to the way she feels about Of Good Report. She’s keen to emphasize that this movie tells South African Stories. These are things that are happening every day and the fact that the film is banned shows that people are willing to turn a blind eye to realities of South Africa.
“What is shown in this movie is nothing new! It’s real, it’s relevant and SA and most importantly it’s happening right now! We hear about Rape, Gang Rape, Statutory rape every day, we shouldn’t ignore it, we need to acknowledge that this happens daily!”
We asked her what she thought of the chances of the Ban being overturned were and she responded, “Look I’m not going to go there. But of course I hope that it’s overturned. The fact that it’s been labeled as ‘Child Pornography’ though is incredibly offensive. Not just to me, but to everyone involved in this film. It’s a low jab that was completely unnecessary”
On the back of what we heard from her, we feel even more empathetic towards the decision to ban the film. For the sake of freedom of speech and expression we would hope that the ban could be overturned sooner rater than later.
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