Five Fingers for Marseilles

An African Western

Synopsis

The 1980s: The small community of Railway, attached to the remote South African town of Marseilles, are the victims of brutal police oppression and only five young boys – the ‘Five Fingers’ – are willing to stand up to them. Their battle is heartfelt but innocent, until hot-headed Tau kills three policemen in an act of passion. He flees Marseilles, fearing for his life, but his action has triggered what will become a long and violent war between the police and his remaining Five Finger brothers. And his action has affected them all deeply, in their own individual ways…

Twenty years later, Tau is released from a Johannesburg prison. He has become a feared and brutal gang leader, but scarred and empty inside, he renounces violence and returns to the community of his childhood desiring only a peaceful pastoral life. In time the Five Fingers won the battle for freedom, but to his dismay Tau finds that rather than the haven he hoped for, Marseilles is a community now caught in the grip of cross-border gangs and corruption. Struggling to reconcile with his bitter past, he can keep his head down only so long. When violence spills into his own life he is reluctantly compelled to act. Railway and Marseilles need a champion to fight for their freedom once and for all. Calling in old prison-mates and with new blood at his side, Tau forms a new Five Fingers, standing against old friends and new enemies alike in a thrilling escalation of battle. Finally, with redemption at stake, Tau must venture into the open plains in a final showdown with his childhood allies. Can he vanquish his demons before he lays his guns down once and for all? Will any of the original Five Fingers return to Marseilles, or do they all need to fall in the wilderness for the town truly to be free?

Genre: Western
Language: Xhosa/Sotho/English
Running Time: 120min Feature

Status: Script Development

Project Notes

In Five Fingers for Marseilles we aim to create an intelligent and gripping genre crossover, pushing South African cinema’s boundaries. Though the story is set in the fictional town of Marseilles, our aim has always been to base the production on location within a real community. To that end Be Phat Motel writer/director team Sean and Michael scouted small town locations all across the country in late 2009 with a view to finding a community that would provide the best combination of both filmmaking resources and benefits to our production – and development opportunities and benefits to the community itself.

Travelling through the Eastern Cape, and particularly the areas surrounding Lady Grey, near Lesotho’s southern border, we were struck by two things: the resemblance of the area – majestic landscapes, sweeping plains and rocky outcrops – to the worlds of the classic American western, and also by how the struggles and triumphs (over nature, over crime) that affect the communities nestled into the landscape, and the rich characters found in them, mirror the archetypes and stories of the classic western. Larger than life heroes and villains, and the clash of human tendencies towards brotherhood and conflict – we want to bring these western archetypes into this South African landscape, playing on culture and history, crafting a richly emotional and thrilling character-based narrative touching on today’s South Africa and played almost completely in the local languages of Xhosa and Sesotho.

We intend the film to be a project that engages a vast number of enthusiastic Lady Grey inhabitants and provide many benefits to the town financially, through film industry experience and training (including casting many roles locally and incorporating the local Lady Grey Arts Academy and its students into the production on and off-screen) and through exposure for the area. Big steps have already been taken to these ends.

For more information about Five Fingers for Marseilles please contact production@bephatmotel.com. To follow our trip and development process check out the Motel Diaries.

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