The first series I remember binge watching was Dallas or a thing in the '70s called Iron Horse when television started in South Africa. Not many people in the township had TVs and this one neighbour would put her big Telefunken in the lounge window and we would all bring our chairs and watch.
It was my childhood memories of cowboys and identifying with them in the absence of our heroes either being in jail or in prison or just not there. It was a way to fantasise about being in a different world where things seemed equal.
Right now the shows at the top of my list are Ray Donovan, The Fixer and Empire. At the moment I'm revisiting Prison Break and watching the new Roots. I tried some of the South African stuff but we're not there yet in terms of creating impactful series.
I try to find out what other people who are similar to me are watching. There's a series that really grabbed me now and I found it by luck and that's Queen Sugar. It has made me rethink a lot of what we're busy with here in terms of classy stuff because it speaks to the same issues as we do in SA but it's on another level in terms of writing and cinematography.
I live in a so-called "coloured community" and so it's as if I'm living two realities. One is being a free person and the other is living in Eldorado Park and looking at the state of cinema and seeing how people are absent apart from representations as gangsters and drug addicts and fucked-up parents etc. There's no real image that is dealt with in any significant way. We end up buying into imitations of other film industries and it's a real challenge.
I'm finishing my PhD documentary. Next year I'll start my feature film about the San and Khoi trackers who were used by 32 Battalion in the '80s...