Short and Sweet Season 2 kicked off last Tuesday at the Wunderbar Theatre (‘Old’ German Club) off Hope St in Cape Town. The night opened with ‘Nothing about Nothing’ a short film premiere by South African director Daniel Levi. We sat down and caught up with the man.

He talks about the short film being its own separate medium because it needs to be written with a certain structure in mind, and the main element he identifies making a short film successful is its simplicity. Daniel talks with excitement about where filmmaking is at the moment in South Africa, and for him he is really thrilled to have returned to the country.

‘Short & Sweet for me has always been intriguing; I had only seen it on Facebook and heard about the festival. I was not in Cape Town last year and I was amazed at the turnout and how so many people were interested… I thought wow, this is quite a magical event – it shows how interested people are in short film.’ (Daniel Levi)

Daniel gives advice to aspiring filmmakers:

I think the advice I can give young filmmakers is set aside your judgements and self criticism, and pick up the camera and make stuff, and get the experience because its through the action and experience of making film that we as filmmakers develop our language, its not through a thought process its actually through the doing.

Image: Picturescope

Image: Picturescope

Click here for the Facebook event.
Click here to watch the Short & Sweet 2012 trailer.

© Malcolm Mc Neill

Iconic Beat writer and poet William S. Burroughs met Malcolm Mc Neill in London in 1970 while working on the comic The Unspeakable Mr. Hart for the short-lived Cyclops. At 23, Mc Neill was still a student in his final year of art school while Burroughs had already lived a life as chemically and sexually experimental as his writing.

Mc Neill’s imagery captures the fecund destruction within modern society and Burroughs’ head through dense and complex images. Cannibalism, rape and blackened icons under vanilla skies… the world in its most primitive and raw state. After Cyclops folded, the duo began work on what they called a ‘Word/Image Novel’. Ah Pook is Here was developed into a 120-page book and was accepted by San Francisco publishers Straight Arrow books in 1971. But the project was abandoned in 1974 when the publishers closed down, seeing light in a ‘text only’ form in 1979 by Calder publishing.

Burroughs’ ‘cut-up technique’ helped create parallels and crossing paths between issues of politics, mysticism, drugs, sexuality and common human emotion. The story of Ah Pook is Here follows billionaire newspaper tycoon John Stanley Hart as he tries to build a Media Control Machine and achieve immortality. His quest leads him to ancient Mayan books and the accidental summoning of Ah Pook, the Mayan God of Death, and hot pursuit by assorted mutants. The idea of time is made fluid and initiates battles between the ideals of ancient and modern society. Many critics have hailed it as one of the world’s ‘lost masterpieces’. Almost 15 years since Burroughs’ death and 40 since the book’s inception, Mc Neill has attempted to gain access to the text of Ah Pook is Here from the Burroughs estate – to no avail. He has recently released The Lost Art of Ah Pook is Here, which is a collection of all original and updated imagery.

© Malcolm Mc Neill

Ah Pook has been called a failure as a book but a success as a literary experiment or graphic novel. How does this affect the balance between words and images?

Its appeared to demonstrate Bill’s contention that the purpose of writing was to make it happen – happen in a literal sense… to realise fictional ideas as fact. The collaboration began as the result of a coincidence and the ongoing coincidence of fact and fiction was what made it unusual.

Some of these occurred after Bill’s death and were the impetus for the project being revived.

Those particular events realised the first two sentences of the book.

© Malcolm Mc Neill

© Malcolm Mc Neill

What are the first two sentences?

‘The Mayan codices are undoubtedly books of the dead; that is to say, directions for time travel. If you see reincarnation as a fact, then the question arises: how does one orient oneself with regard to future lives?’

Regardless of implications or meaning, Ah Pook was brought back to life by a dead man.

The correspondence between his life trajectory and my own, and its relevance to the collaboration and premise of the book, were significant enough to make me reconsider the whole experience. As with the coincidence that initiated the project, it was a case of seeing where the idea might lead.

Ah Pook was a book about time and death.

Coincidences: you can choose to acknowledge them or ignore them. With Ah Pook, it was the former. Bill didn’t take coincidences lightly. The term ‘graphic novel’ didn’t exist back then and the book wasn’t planned as such. It was a case of simply combining words and images in whatever form seemed to work best.

The fact that there was no market for it at that time and no real financial incentive was what led to its ‘failure’ as a book.

I think it’s odd that the Burroughs Estate would miss out on what – today – is a potential financial opportunity…

It‘s often less a case of the power of words themselves than the power – and the need for power – of those who control them. The way they are used and allowed to be used.
 
To read the full feature, go buy your copy of the latest issue now!

© Malcolm Mc Neill

© Malcolm Mc Neill

 
interview by: bianca budricks and sarah claire picton
images: © Malcolm Mc Neill, lostartofahpook.com

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It was hot outside and the beautiful 20-something’s that made up most of the crowd were not ashamed to show off their skin. The bottle store does not have as many six packs as were exposed on shirtless guys this weekend. The woman all rocked flat stomachs and sun-kissed skin. It was a spectacle: slightly intimidating for the lesser-confident wanderers. A man asked a couple that walked by him, ‘can I just kiss one, or both, of you?’ His friends chuckled and the couple smiled. There were many gorgeous individuals at Love & Light.

 
The event was only a 40 minute drive from Cape Town city center and, being only one day, would leave plenty of time for indoor Sunday-recovery time. After parking it was a mere stones’ throw, maybe an arrow’s launch walk to the music. The bass thumped in our insides as we approached. It was noon and we had considered ourselves the early birds throughout the drive. This was not the case. The music, the grooves and the positive vibrations were all in full swing when we arrived. The name of the game was mellowness and self expression, the metaphorical game. Like most trance parties, this party was void of any fist fights; that would have been totally out of place. Instead we encountered men and women alike grooving out as if no one was watching. The people, the artists were living in the moment. Dance moves carried on the waves of the beats, infecting most of the crowd, creating a distinct, shared harmony. Some swam and others grooved in the shade.

A partially enclosed tent and nearby trees protected the audience from the sun. The sweat of the crowd did not infect us; well placed misters calmed our nerves and cooled our foreheads. There was nothing to do at the Love and Light festival besides soak up beats, the rays an all the feel-good energy. The first DJ we saw performing, The Fog Show, rocked out with a live violinist. After that, Lox chilled it with his dreadlocks and attuned reading of the crowd. Each successive performer built up the energy by a gigabyte; each read our emotions.
 

Felguk – Do You Like Bass (Neelix Rmx) by neelix

After time on our feet and the knowledge that this 10-hour event, not including the afterparty that was hosted at Trinity, was a marathon and not a sprint we headed to the reservoir, separated from the stage by brambles. There we encountered floating dolphins, blow-up beach balls and warm but refreshing water. Speakers pumped next to the water, making the swimming game part of the festival action. If one needed a moment of silence all you needed to do was hold your breath and take a dunk. A lifeguard was on duty, or at least someone sporting a ‘Lifegaurd’ tee.
 

Symphonix DJ Set by Symphonix

Frequent trips to the car to ‘stay hydrated’ kept my buzz going. In addition, Red Bull had a tent and there were two full service bars, one on the water’s edge, the other under the tent near the stage, at our disposal. All the vibes were good. A pretty blonde waved to the swimmers from the window of a cop car that drove up into my periphery. They had kindly given her a ride, sparing her the thirty second stroll. She jumped off the police truck and joined the party. The cops had no one to bust that I could see. Who needs fear or confrontation when there is love and light? Pardon the cliché.
 


 
Neelix played a thumping set that I don’t think the crowd responded perfectly well to. But Connecto got everyone going again and shade begun to arch onto the scene. Overall the festival was a success, liberating and filled to the brim with eye candy. Symphonix tore it up and unfortunately I didn’t last to see Killer Robot. It had been a long day.
 



 
Photos: Paul Ward
www.diaryofward.com
 
Words: Jason Shark

Sorrenti said about the theme:

In ‘swoon’, I put the bodies in direct contact with Nature, which harbors them as if they were its extension, in a set of images where rocks, land, tree trunks, sky and sea are all turned into a backdrop for the bodies.

Mario Sorrenti shot twelve beautiful actresses and models in the raw yet romantic terrain of Corsica. Even though Pirelli is an Italian brand, Mario Sorrenti was the first Italian photographer to have shot the Pirelli calendar.

Sorrenti about the shoot:

I always thought about taking clothes off as a way of getting closer to the individual and the person, and of getting something that was more honest and pure.

Some of the models were very pleased with the photographer and were doling out compliments.

Mila Jovovich said:

Mario Sorrenti and I have been friends since we were both pretty much teenagers and it’s the most amazing thing to work with old friends that make you feel comfortable. He’s pretty much the only person I would take my clothes off for!

Kate Moss adds:

He adores women – he really loves the female form and everything about it.

 
Watch this behind the scene footage