''SMS Sugar Man'' is a South African

narrative film Narrative film, fictional film or fiction film is a motion picture that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. Commercial narrative films with running times of over an hour are often referred to as feature films, or featur ...

shot entirely on Sony Ericsson W900i

camera phone A camera phone is a mobile phone that is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with a color c ...

s in 2008. The experimental feature film was directed by Aryan Kaganof and used eight cell phones to make the film. ''SMS Sugar Man'' is the first feature-length film in the world to be made entirely with mobile camera phones.

Plot

The film reveals the story of a pimp and two high-class prostitutes with some traveling incidents around

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

on a Christmas Eve.

Cast

* Aryan Kaganof as Sugar Man(Pimp) * Leigh Graves as Grace(Prostitute) * Deja Bernhardt as Selene(Prostitute) * Samantha Rocca as Anna * Attila Barna Attila Barna as Attilla * Julius Moeletsi as Scorpion * Patricia Boyer as Crack whore * Zhouie Bernhardt as Jacky * Jerry Mofokeng as wallet-1 * Norman Maake as Wallet son * John Matshikiza as Wallet-2 * Ryan Fortune as Wallet-3 * Luthuli Dlamini as Wallet-4 * Bill Curry as Wallet-5

Development

''SMS Sugar Man'' was shot in eleven days with eight camera phones for less than 1 million rand ($164,100). Producer Michelle Wheatley said, "We wanted to make a radically low-budget film to show that anyone can do this".

Analysis

Lizelle Bisschoff and Ann Overbergh wrote in "Digital as the New Popular in African Cinema? Case Studies from the Continent", published in '' Research in African Literatures'', that ''SMS Sugar Man'' is a "semi-pornographic and highly erotic and subversive film, with a political subtext". They said that even though popular and easily accessible equipment was used to make the film, it cannot be called "popular art", but rather "underground" and "experimental".

Reception

In a review of ''SMS Sugar Man'' in ''Under Ground Film Journal'', Mike Everleth described the film as "a poetic, haunting film that uses a bold new technology to capture the most basic and primal of human interactions". He said that despite being shot entirely with camera phones, the film "never comes across as being gimmicky", and "never takes the cheap route in the telling of the story".

References

External links

''SMS Sugar Man'' homepage
* {{IMDb title, 1663670
SMS Sugarman
2008 films Mobile phone films