Quinton aka Bertram Fredericks 32 Shearwater Drive Marina Da Gama Cape Town 8000 South Africa
Motivation and context for starting the Young Filmmakers Afterschool Film and Television Skills Development Programme for Learners in Disadvantaged Schools on the Cape Flats, South Africa
The Young Filmmakers Programme is a Non Profit Organisations providing film and television production skills to learners in schools on the Cape Flats most affected by gang violence and drug abuse. It seeks to give learners from these communities the opportunity to explore a potential career path that they might not have thought available to them. In addition, the fees at any of the film schools operating in South Africa make access to them impossible for learners and their parents from these communities and the programme provides an alternative route of access to the industry for them.
The programme was conceptualized by Quinton aka Bertram Fredericks, who, having grown up on the Cape Flats and, as a former gang member and subsequent political activist in the anti-apartheid struggle, is intimately familiar with the devastating impact of both criminal and political violence on the fabric of South African society and the psyches of our youth. A recent report in a local newspaper leads with the headline, “Gang War hits Schools Hardest” a harsh testimony to the reality of life for poor youth on the Cape Flats, who, faced with little or no prospects provide the gangs with a steady supply of willing young recruits prepared to die in the name of the perverse gangland culture and a warped understanding of what it means to be a man, for whom respect means everything and life, and the value thereof, little else. Quinton and his two partners in the YFP, Irfaan Fredericks (SA) and Michael Murphy (American) decided to engage in a series of activities and programmes to mitigate the impact of this culture of violence. In late 2013, with a grant of R 570 000,00 secured by Michael Murphy in his capacity as the Executive Producer on a Fox TV production, they registered the Young Filmmakers Programme as a Non - Profit Organization. Most of Quinton’s films as a documentary filmmaker have also focused on what Frantz Fanon terms, “The Psychology of Poverty and Oppression”, essentially a statement on how the ‘brutalized’ i.e. the oppressed, in turn, become their own oppressors by internalising and accepting, as ‘normal’ the disproportionate levels of violence and abuse manifesting in their neighbourhoods. This is compounded by the media and entertainment industry, which bombards the viewing public with massive doses of ‘entertainment violence, the effects of which are devastating to the impressionable minds of our youth, many of whom struggle with issues of low self-esteem and dysfunctional/broken home environments where love, warmth and compassion are in short supply. This is compounded by a failing education system, which places an inordinate emphasis on academic achievement and fails to provide alternative mechanisms of achievement and recognition thus further alienating the youth. Coupled with the easy access to drugs and guns on the Cape Flats and elsewhere in South African townships, we effectively have what social scientists have termed, ‘another lost generation’, a reference to the youth of the seventies and eighties who, as a consequence of their involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle, sacrificed their schooling and ended up with little or no skills which would have allowed them to take their place as productive members of our society. Does this mean that the situation is all doom and gloom, certainly not, it presents us with an as yet untapped resource which has yet to be mobilised in defence of our youth and our fledgling democracy Quinton developed a comprehensive insight into the many challenges facing youth development in South Africa and has both managed and implemented successful youth programmes, most notably the Usiko project in Jamestown Stellenbosch, which he piloted in 2001 and which in 2009, received grant funding from Comic Relief in London of close on to R 10 million. He was asked by the then Africa Grants programme Coordinator, Abudullai Suleiman to come back and managed the programme, but was unable to do so at the time due to previous commitments.
The Young Filmmakers Programme is well networked with extensive contacts both within the target communities, civil society and the public and private sector and has a coherent understanding of the roles and programmes of many of the key agencies dealing with youth development and entrepreneurship such as the national Youth Development Agency, the Department of Trade and Industry the national Lottery and the provincial departments of Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation. The role of the Juvenile Justice Diversion Bill (largely underutilized and poorly understood and rarely applied by law enforcement agencies in dealing with young offenders, also informed some of the objectives of the programme, as the model of mentorship, is easily replicated. “It is, in my opinion, one of the most progressive pieces of legislation South Africa has yet it took ten years of lobbying and advocacy by various agencies before this Bill was passed in our parliament, during which time so many young people were being processed through the penal system, something that could easily have been prevented had the Bill been in place.� (Quinton) Learning the value of self - respect and the discipline it allows one to exercise in the face of harsh life challenges, is an integral component of the programme and is designed to help young men and women, to focus and direct their energy in a contained form. It also provides an outlet for the many pent up emotions that sometimes manifest in unbridled anger and aggression, which can be so destructive and, which, if channelled in a positive fashion, can also be a powerful motivating force in the lives of the youth. We need our youth to healthy relationships with their minds, bodies and spirits and building the resilience they will need to heal the wounded fabric of our collective psyche. That essentially, is the ultimate goal of the Young Filmmakers Programme.