Cast

Barbara Hershey (Melody)

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		Watch the interview with: Barbara Hershey

John Kani (Stone)

Jusuf Davids (River)

Tony Koroge (Scoop)

Casting

Casting for The Bird Can't Fly

If I had known, eight years ago, that the making of a feature film would take so long, I'd propably never started the project. But I didn't know, or rather: I didn't want to know. And now, here I am in Cape Town, in order to find the ten years old boy who's going to perform River, one of the main characters in The Bird Can't Fly.

Cape Town, June 23th
The producers are all day long behind their computers with tense faces, and they talk like experienced butchers: 'Here's something we can cut down, for we have only five weeks to shoot it'; 'A contractor couldn't be that expensive over here in South Africa?'; 'No, she doesn't need that.' I don't wanna know what I don't need, I don't wanna hear it. Money, I'm getting sick to death of money. With film making everything revolves on money.
I walk back into the office of Mickie, the casting director, and we make a plan of approach. In the film the boy River has a black father and a white mother; he has to speak proper English and he should have a natural charisma. Mickie suggest a double forked strategy: we'll go street casting and we'll approach common agents as well.

Atlantis Dunes, June 24th
About 25 mile north of Cape Town a small desert area is situated near the former township Atlantis. After we've shown our permits to the guard, the barrier opens and we're allowed to explore the site. My hired car is no 4x4, so we'll have to walk.
Five years ago, the day my mother died unexpectedly, I'd been here too. That was the day I decided my film would be shot here. The only thing we'll have to do now, is find the right glen.
We climb dune after dune. From time to time we sink deep into the sand. We joke about trucks that will get stuck during the shoot. About escaping ostriches. About sand in the camera en in between our teeth. Suddenly we descend a small pan. Simultaneously we call out: 'This is it!' Here we're going to build the village.

Cape Town, June 28th
It's cold. Everyone is wearing sweaters and scarfs. The production aids in the back room wear gloves even while typing. In Holland there seems to be a heat wave. With this electric little stove under my table I interview possible key crew members. Again and again I explain I'm going to make a film that's timeless and not situated anywhere specific, and that we'll find ourselves on the edge of reality and fantasy, though the audience should experience that world as real. All my antennae are on the alert. With the putting together of a team my intuition is my main instrument.

Atlantis Township, June 29th
I'm searching for the local radio station but get hopelessly lost in the maze of dead ends and East-block-like rows of houses. Because we'll shoot near Atlantis, I want to start the search for the boy River here.
The interviewer of the radio station is thus nervous by the presence of a white woman in his studio that he too gets lost, but I tell my story and Mickie is translating it into Afrikaans; next Saturday morning we'll start the casting here.
When we are about to get in the car, I see three little lads walking past. Mickie's has spotted them too. "The small one," I say. "That's him." She nods. The boys are wrapped up in conversation and cross the street. Mickie steps up to them; she is one meter fiftyfive and coloured like them. I know my skin colour will scare them off, so I join later.
The small boy's name is Yusuf. He's got an uncommon face, with eyes that tell ten stories at once. I can see inquisitiveness, urge for survival, grief, fun, expectation, fear, vice, love, shyness, warmth. I'm instantly in love. And keep repeating he should come to audition next Saturday.

Atlantis, July 1st
I've been dreaming about Yusuf. If he only turns up, if only there will be boys at all. It's holiday period and the cold weather doesn't really help. We drive along the ocean northwards. My eyes are focused on one thing only; small boys. I must be a paedophile.
Yusuf is waiting with one of his friends en some other children plus their mothers in front of the door. I've devised a game, by which I can see a lot of their qualities. Yusuf doesn't disappoint me. On the contrary, he is by far the best; but his English...! It's a language he never speaks.

Cape Town, July 3rd
All boys I see via the agencies don't have what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for a brushed up kid with a colgate smile, I need a boy with serration. A child with a story in his eyes. We visit orphanages, shopping centres, soccer grounds, cinemas and all places where kids hang around. In the street we address many a small lad that crosses our path. We write down telephone numbers of their mothers and call them with the request if their child is allowed to come to audition.

Cape Town, July 5th
Mickie proposes to go searching for street urchins together with Damian, a former gangster. Cape Town is crawling with them. In My Life, a centre for the homeless, there are no kids today, just men with damaged mugs in worn out clothes. Damian takes us to the taxi rank above the station, to the stairs beneath the cinema and to an alley near the market. I talk to children who swiftly hide their bag of glue snuff and show blue feet from the cold. These kids are too far gone, but each of them has something I like much more than the well-fed middle class offspring the agencies want to fob me off with.

Cape Town, July 12th
Seven boys I've selected for a second round, amongst whom Yusuf, for sure. And there is Ronny, a thirteen year old street urchin that has been in prison. He's got everything I'm looking for. The only thing is, I'm afraid he cannot cope when I'll make an appeal on his emotions. I've talked with him for a long time, before I admitted him to this round, but I want to give it a try.
While Mickie is teaching the group a text they have to say, I bring them one by one to a seperate room and ask them for their first memory.
Ronny rolls his eyes and wants to swallow his tongue. I repeat my question. His shoulders move. "Stabbing someone," he mumbles almost inaudible. I don't know if I'm getting this right. "What do you say?" I ask.
"Stab... stab..."
"What happened?"
"I stab a guy with a knife."
"Why?" Like a flash he shrugs, his eyes turning to me for support. "How old was the guy?"
He stares into the distance. "He was older than me," he says, "I was about ten years."
"You don't remember anything before?" He nods.
"Why you stabbed him?"
He shrugs.
"Were you angry?"
He nods.
"Very angry?"
He nods.
"Where you stabbed him?"
"In the heart."
"And he died?"
He nods.

Cape Town, July 18th
Yusuf is still the best, but the more he is confronted with "whities" the more timid he becomes. He even appears to be terrified of ostriches.
I know I will be flying back tomorrow to attend the presentation of my new novel. I have to cut the knot. Will he be able to do it? Will he?
As I am used to do, I use the only tool I have. My intuition.

Crew

Biography Guido van Gennep 2007

Director of Photography and director.

Guido van Gennep (1963) graduated from the Rietveld Art Academy Amsterdam in 1992, with two short films. His graduation film FIGHTING was shown at the Rotterdam International Filmfestival, and won the Prins Bernhard Fonds Prijs 1992.
Guido directed and shot several shorts after that, like HAPPY AT LARGE, MISTER MAGIC, THE REVENGE OF THE SHADOW, DUTCHMAN, SHOPPING and FLICKA, the last two together with Marco Vermaas.
While he was doing camera for his own films Guido started to shoot commercials and shorts for other directors, like GITANES and MOËT & CHANDON for Mark de Cloe, FORBIDDEN EYES, THE HIDDEN FACE and STILL WORLD for Elbert van Strien and EXIT and BORIS for Simone van Dusseldorp.
In 1995 he directed the eight part satirical TV series THE PRIDE OF THE DUTCH with famous dutch comedians Lebbis and Jansen.

In 1999 Guido started THE FANTASTS with Elbert van Strien and Djie Han Thung; they wrote a manifesto calling on the dutch filmworld to put more imagination in dutch cinema instead of social realism. More than 50 prominent dutch directors, actors and scriptwriters cosigned the manifesto.
Since 2001 Guido has been shooting mainly commercials and features, like MOONLIGHT and TIRAMISU for Paula van der Oest, CLOACA and SPOON for Willem van der Sande Backhuizen, THE SCHNITZELPARADISE for director Martin Koolhoven, THE BIRD CAN'T FLY for Threes Anna and THE BOTOX METHOD for Dick Maas.