5 MINUTES WITH STONE COLD JANE AUSTEN

Stone Cold Jane Austen is the new proudly South African film that’s doing us, well, proud. The mockumentary follows the journey of a band trying to break into the Afrikaans music market. We caught up with Jon Savage, the creator and one of the leading men in the movie, to get a glance behind the scenes.

What inspired this epic rock story that’s never been told?

Hahaha. The whole of the South African music industry was my inspiration, including my own experiences in Cassette for all those years. I think being a serious full-time rock musician in South Africa is quite an absurd career, and is full of unexpected obstacles created by our culture and our difficult proximity to other music markets. My admiration for artists who have made it, coupled with my own failures in this industry, became the thread behind the comedy.

How did your experience as the frontman of Cassette shape Johnny Van Heroine? Are there any similarities?

Let’s just say this: I know Johnny Van Heroine’s character maybe too well…

There are many well-known SA musicians, from Kurt Darren to Aking to Jack Parrow, in this film. What was it like on set with everyone?

Each star brought their own juice! Fokofpolisiekar were just incredible, not only because it was such an honour to have them as part of the project, but because of how good they were. Wynand is a freaking natural actor and he is what is confusing about the movie – he seems so convincing that you have to ask yourself whether what is happening is real or not.

Jack Parow was just incredibly generous. He took three seconds to agree to be part of this crazy scene, arrived on time and KILLED his scene! He was incredible.

Kurt Darren gave up days of his life for us! His scene is completely nuts but he was so cool and game for anything.

Arno Carstens has the best scene in the movie and that’s all I’m going to say.

But the real star was Rob Van Vuuren. He is so quick and professional and dynamic that he made the entire process easy. He never said ‘You want me do what?????’. He just got on the rollercoaster and pretended everything was normal, which gave me huge confidence to continue asking him for more dumb things.

What was the funniest moment on set? With Rob Van Vuuren as your co-star bandmate there are bound to be a few.

Every moment on set with Rob is funny. When we were shooting the Game Of Thrones music video scene, he just took on the qualities of an action star! He was pulling all these incredible moves – chopping people’s heads off and karate chopping guys 10 at a time. Watching him do that was hysterical.

Stone Cold Jane Austen went to the Cannes Film Festival this year. Tell us more about this surely amazing experience.

What I can tell you is that it was one of the most exciting and intense experiences of my life. What i can’t tell you about is our new international partnership, which we will announce in the next few weeks!

Check out the trailer below:

Photography Courtesy