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Rural Community Thriller ‘Snake’ Shows How Streamer Support Makes Smaller South African Stories Possible


South African thriller 'Snake,' Joburg Film Festival's closing film, is a feature that wouldn't have been made if it wasn't for streamer money.

Based on the heart-wrenching 2011 book by Tracey Farren, who also penned the screenplay, a powerless farm girl Stella, played by 9-year-old Lamiyah Barnard, becomes the only one who can stop a smarmy and mysterious interloper who arrives with a flute and dazzles everyone in a rural town, hiding his nefarious intent while going on a killing spree. Shot in rural South Africa with painfully beautiful scenes of poverty and decay, the Known Associates Entertainment production was lensed over seven and a half weeks near Atlantis, Malmesbury and Philadelphia in the Western Cape province. Rickards says the influx of streamer money to South Africa’s growing film biz “broadens the scope because they’re not going for big blockbusters and the budgets aren’t for that.”

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