Tarina Patel on how people's respect and faith gave her wings to fly

Movie producer Tarina Patel has proved over the years that there's more to her than meets the eye.

With two successful movies under her belt that she produced the star is thrilled with how well her recent film Collision has been received across the world.

Speaking to TshisaLIVE, the actress and model said she had faith in her stories which gives her the confidence when seeking funding.

“I have the skills to network globally, I have the talent in identifying the stories and I have the wherewithal to put my head down and keep at it. We are no strangers to rejection as actresses. We knock on doors, but people have faith in me. Tarina Patel — the name carries weight, thank God. They know I’ve been in the industry since 16, they know that I’m a global actress. I’ve always delivered and that’s not gonna change and when people have respect and faith in you as an individual, as an actress, then they start having faith in you as a producer and you’ve got to deliver over and over like I delivered with Mandela’s Gun.” 

She said funding was the hardest but rewarding part of getting the film up and running.

“You’ve got various grants in the country that are available to you. You’ve got to be quite a powerful player to access those grants. They are available to everyone, they don’t discriminate but you’ve got to have a solid project. You’ve got to have your paperwork in order. So in that regard you gotta be pretty strong because it’s not available to people who don’t know what they are doing, nor should it be. You know, you can’t have access to grants when you really don’t know what you are doing because at the point of putting your paperwork together and fulfilling all these requirements, if you cant do that can you imagine how you would be incapable of producing a film?”

She added that while she requests funding, her history in the industry has afforded her the opportunity to have private donors

“There are very stringent requirements that you need to fulfil to be able to access the grant but that’s just part of it. The rest of it has to be generated by private funding and investors who believe in you  I've never let my funders down which is why repeatedly I can go to the very same people and raise that kind of money because they have faith in me.”

Another side to the actress and producer is her philanthropic efforts that have ties to both SA and India.

“So I've been doing it kind of organically from the very inception. But for me, my father being one of the brilliant doctors of SA, I mean, he's served the disadvantaged and underprivileged communities for almost five decades. He was a great doctor. I mean, this man was a legend. When he passed away, I took the baton on and started a foundation in his name. It's called the Dr Ramanbhai Patel Foundation (RBP).The foundation provides innovative medical technology. I studied medicine and I believe that health care is a basic human right to people. And the fact that I could bring doctors in during Covid-19 relief efforts with no charge and see tens of thousands of patients is phenomenal work. 

“So again, education is a fundamental human right that I have so much faith in, you know, as somebody who's lived that life, and continues to live it. So you know, I want to propagate that message and I do it in the most real way. I also started the Gandhi Mandela peace initiative.” 

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