{"id":13484,"date":"2021-11-10T15:29:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T13:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=13484"},"modified":"2021-11-10T15:29:04","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T13:29:04","slug":"sons-of-the-sea-is-a-riveting-re-telling-of-the-age-old-story-of-dispossession-streaming-13-november-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2021\/11\/10\/sons-of-the-sea-is-a-riveting-re-telling-of-the-age-old-story-of-dispossession-streaming-13-november-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"“Sons Of The Sea” Is a Riveting Re-telling Of The Age Old Story Of Dispossession Streaming 13 November 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Award-winning film about brotherhood and marginalisation premieres on DStv BoxOffice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sons Of The Sea, Brendon Daniels<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ordinary people often have extraordinary tales to tell. In making the film \u2018Sons of the Sea\u2019, Mexican American writer and director John Gutierrez found in Kalk Bay a people that reminded him of home, and a history of dispossession and survival that was all too familiar to the Californian native.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe climate and the natural landscape felt deeply recognisable, but so too did the people… the mestizo (people of mixed ancestry) population of Cape Town, the city’s majority, reminded me in so many ways of my own Californian Mexican family and community,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backed by a cast of well-known South Africans, Gutierrez zooms in on the story of two brothers set against the backdrop of the troubled history of abalone. Known locally as perlemoen, the illicit trade in the highly valued delicacy is tied to gangs and Chinese triads who use it as a political weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sons of the Sea\u2019 tells the story of Gabriel (Roberto Kyle \u2018Knapsek\u00earels\u2019, \u2018Arendsvlei\u2019), a gifted and virtuous but reclusive teenager from the poor fishing community of Kalk Bay, who is pressured by his jaded older brother Mikhail (Marlon Swarts) to steal two bags of the ocean treasure from a dead man. But when corrupt government official Peterson (Brendon Daniels \u2018Four Corners\u2019, \u2018iNumber Number\u2019), starts to hunt the boys down, their efforts to sell the stolen goods before they are caught take them through the mountainous region of the Cape of Good Hope, and into a fight for survival. The film premieres on DStv BoxOffice<\/a> on 13 September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the role of Gabriel is Roberto Kyle, who starred in the fourth season of the Emmy winning show, \u2018Homeland\u2019 and more recently in telenovela \u2018Arendsvlei\u2019 and \u2018Fynskrif\u2019 season 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendon Daniels, in the role of Peterson, has appeared in many films, including \u2018Dollars and White Pipes\u2019, \u2018End of the Road\u2019, \u2018Fleisch\u2019, \u2018Master Harold and the Boys\u2019, \u2018I Now Pronounce You Black and White\u2019, \u2018Black Butterflies\u2019, \u2018Four Corners\u2019, \u2018Zulu\u2019 and \u2018iNumber Number\u2019. He has also starred in several series on television, such as \u2018Interrogation Room\u2019, \u2018Madam & Eve\u2019, \u2018Stellenbosch\u2019, \u2018Shooting Stars\u2019, \u2018League of Glory\u2019, and Doen Meyer\u2019s \u2018Trackers\u2019, based on the best-selling novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the role of Tanya, Gabriel\u2019s girlfriend, is Nicole Fortuin, the classically trained screen, voice and theatre actor. Most recently she starred in \u2018Flatland\u2019, and \u2018Rage\u2019 (Showmax\u2019s first original horror film). Internationally, Fortuin has played support leads in \u2018A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits\u2019 (Warner Brothers\/ Disney) and \u2018Dead In The Water\u2019 (Syfy). She has worked in numerous series, including \u2018Alles Malan\u2019, \u2018Agent\u2019, \u2018Generations: The Legacy\u2019 and web-series \u2018Op En Af\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marlon Swarts, known to television and theatre audiences, makes his feature film debut in \u2018Sons of the Sea\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw in the fishing community of Cape Town the same multi-generational marginalisation, people pushed off and away from their land, separated from place and soul, that I’d known and seen all my life in the United States,\u201d Gutierrez says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to make a conventional crime film about the prohibited abalone trade; instead, I wanted to explore characters with rich, difficult emotional worlds, characters slamming up hard against history, struggling to survive an impossible present.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sons of the Sea\u2019 screened in March 2020 at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California. At the Durban International Film Festival in August, it won the award for Best South African Feature Film. The jury chose because it \u201cpoignantly displays the power of relationships for good and evil\u201d. The \u2018Sunday Times\u2019 named the film as one of \u201cthe best of the fest\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In making \u2018Sons of the Sea\u2019, Gutierrez was inspired by John Steinbeck\u2019s novel \u2018The Pearl\u2019 and the Mexican legend of ‘El Mechudo’, the greatest pearl free diver in Baja California, who aims to defend his title by diving deeper than ever before, but is found dead by his friends, with his hand caught in a giant oyster. Today, the ghost of El Mechudo haunts those who dare to dive for oysters in the Bay of La Paz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a boy, I was fascinated by Mechudo’s bravery and daring,\u201d says Gutierrez. \u201cAs an adult, other themes in his story, around indignity, belonging, and a tortured kind of masculinity, began to reveal themselves. These themes are at the heart of \u2018Sons of the Sea\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film is produced by Khosie Dali, Imran Hamdulay, David Horler (\u2018Flatland\u2019) and John Gutierrez. It also stars Nicole Fortuin (\u2018Rage\u2019, \u2018Flatland\u2019), supported by Sylvia Esau, Noor Emandien, Lamar Esau, Clark Han-Lung Lin and Chris Mbelembushe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sons of the Sea\u2019 is distributed in South Africa by Indigenous Film Distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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