South Africa

South Africa, Maverick Life

A creative journey inspired by magic, drag and the transformative power of art

Faith Baloyi in Flatland. (Photo: Supplied)

By Mick Raubenheimer

20 Sep 2024

With each new film, Jenna Cato Bass has enchanted audiences with her originality and creativity.

Jenna Cato Bass is a film director, writer and photographer – and a former magician. Her debut as a director, Love the One You Love, won several prizes at the Durban International Film Festival, while her latest film, Mlungu Wam (a.k.a. Good Madam), released in 2021, received glowing reviews internationally.

When did you first identify as an artist?

I’ve literally always had this intense desire to make things – I must have driven my parents crazy. I was always writing poems or putting on a play or forcing my younger sister into bizarre photoshoots.

I was very lucky – my family always encouraged me to be creative and affirmed what I did, so being an artist of some kind never felt like it wasn’t an option. All the self-doubt is entirely my own.

Outside your medium, what branch of art most stimulates you?

I love so many other art forms. It’s why I chose to be a filmmaker, because it was a way in which I could combine, if not all, then most of them. But before that, my first job was as a magician, and with hindsight, I feel like all the important lessons that helped me as a filmmaker I learnt from magic.

Andile Nebulane and Chi Mhende in Love the One You Love. (Photo: Supplied)

The most important one is the respect it gave me for the audience: how they’ve given you their time and attention as a gift, and you need to give them something equally wonderful in return. And usually that involves surprising them. I sometimes think that surprising someone is the nicest thing you can do for them – even if it’s often the hardest.

More recently, I’ve become really inspired by the art of drag, partly because this is where, these days, we can see true originality, provocation and authenticity, and it also embraces so many techniques and skills in one art form.

Which artists have significantly inspired you, and why?

For magic, I’d say I’ve been greatly inspired by David Gore, who’s the director and founder of Cape Town’s College of Magic, where I studied. I owe him so much in how he’s inspired me as an entertainer, and even more so as a human being.

In the drag world, Yvie Oddly was the first drag artist whom I fell in love with and who made me feel seen. I’d also say the OG, Divine, who in so many ways is still uncontested.

What, to you, is art’s most important function?

I know a lot of people have said it holds up a mirror to society, which is true. But I think it’s more than a mirror. Art helps us to see ourselves and inside ourselves and make sense of ourselves. But it also helps us to see and appreciate others. Basically, we will always need more art.

Local creatives in any medium who excite you?

I’m going to use this opportunity to hype up my participants from the Free Film School, who are all aspiring or emerging filmmakers in various disciplines. Their commitment and passion, often in the face of really significant challenges, is overwhelming, and I can’t wait to see the things they do.

Which specific work, be it in literature, music or visual art, do you return to again and again, and why?

Twin Peaks (Season 1 & 2) by David Lynch. It’s like this incredible dream, but one you can revisit and reinterpret whenever you want to. It speaks to me on so many levels, and I hope one day to create something even half as deep and exceptional.

Filmmaker Jenna Cato Bass. (Photo: Kourosh Keshiri)

What are your thoughts regarding the artificial intelligence revolution?

I’m very much afraid of it in the sense that corporations and governments have bad track records with ethically managing technology in the best interests of citizens, rather than capital.

I’m less worried about the technology itself, which indeed has many great and useful applications, but rather about the speed at which it’s progressing and the comparative snail’s pace of legislation and policy around it. I’m sure my industry is going to be massively affected by it, for both good and bad, but I don’t think it’s ever going to completely replace human art and storytelling.

Faith Baloyi in Flatland. (Photo: Supplied)

Any project you’re unveiling or wrapping up?

I’m in early prep on a new film called Future Tense, which is a time travel story set in the precolonial Cape, with benchfilms and Causeway, which produced my previous movie, Mlungu Wam (Good Madam). DM

Mick Raubenheimer is a freelance arts writer.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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