In "Carissa," the debut feature from writer-directors Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar, a traditional way of life in South Africa's rural hinterlands faces a challenge when an upscale development is planned for the region. Premiering on Sept. 5 in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival, the film takes place in a small mountain village in the Cederberg region of South Africa, where a multinational company plans to construct a luxury golf estate. To the developers — and many in the local community — the project represents a chance to bring economic opportunity and lift people out of poverty.
For the film’s main character, Carissa, played by Gretchen Ramsden, the arrival of Mont Royale presents a difficult dilemma: Should she move to the city for the prospect of a "better" life, or stay in her small town of Wupperthal to take over her grandfather’s rooibos farm, which is at risk of disappearing once the developers begin construction?
"Carissa" is produced by Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar, along with Deidré Jantjies and Annemarie du Plessis, under Cape Town-based Na Aap Productions. The film took part in last year’s Final Cut lab in Venice, where it won the award for best film in post-production.
Having worked together for nearly a decade, Jacobs and Delmar explain that "Carissa" was inspired by their travels through the small towns and villages of South Africa’s Cederberg mountains. The story grew “organically out of thousands of hours of conversation” with villagers and community leaders about their hopes and fears for the future, according to Delmar.
“So much of what happens in the film comes directly from conversations and experiences we had there,” says Jacobs, describing the filmmaking process as a “deep, ceremonial experience.” He adds, “Our people are natural storytellers... After spending so much time with them, we gained a deeper understanding of how to tell this story.”
Jacobs hails from a village in the dry Namaqualand region near Namibia, while Delmar grew up in the “dreary suburban sprawl” of Pretoria, the capital. “One is a literal desert, and the other is a cultural desert,” Delmar says, though he credits the blend of their two different communities for helping them develop a shared vision for the film.
“These backgrounds come together in interesting ways. They intersect. They’re both similar and different,” says Delmar. He describes their creative process as “embracing that uncomfortable space to have conversations that, in South Africa at least, most people tend to avoid,” while also “learning to live with the discomfort.”
On the surface, "Carissa" could have been a straightforward morality tale of right vs. wrong: greedy capitalists exploiting everything in their path, including innocent villagers holding on to a traditional way of life.
However, the directors take a compassionate and nuanced approach, exploring the “tussle between tradition and modernity,” as Delmar describes it, while focusing on the human impact of what he calls “an unresolvable problem.”
"Carissa" doesn’t offer easy solutions, but the directors believe its greatest achievement is allowing the people of Wupperthal to grapple with these difficult moral questions themselves.
“For the people in the film, knowing they are being seen and heard is a huge accomplishment for all of us,” says Jacobs.
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