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A cameraman during a shoot.
A young recovering drug addict from Greenpoint in Kimberley, Austwell Buffel is using arts to turn his life around, giving hope to his peers still battling addiction.
The dancer and an actor is starring in a locally produced and released film that has offered Buffel a new lease on life.
Staying in an known area rife with gangsterism and drug abuse, Buffel has taken the step to not let his background and circumstances define him. After battling with drugs, he took a leap of faith and turned his life around. In his quest to stay clean, Buffel turned to the arts using his dancing and acting talent.
“Film making just helps me to stay busy and I think as a recovering addict that is what we need to do. We need to stay busy so that we can do what we need to do, follow the morning lines we need to follow. I can only be grateful for this film, it helped me to stay busy and it just brings the success and beautiful things out of me,” he says.
With gangsterism and drug abuse a major social ills facing the youth, the movie looks at their daily encounters Director Jarvis Moir decided to use his experience to coach the youth.
He says, Buffel is just one of many youngsters they want to help by bringing them into the film industry.
“I was just seeing that the youth have nothing to do, so I was just taking people who don’t have experience, people who use drugs and try to motivate the youth. For me it is very nice to work with the youth as a Director. I have been acting for 14 years and that’s why I like the youth to participate in all this to keep crime away.”
Film maker, Rufus Gabriel says the film industry in the Northern Cape is growing. He says while there is a lot of talent, funding still remains an issue.
“The local films in the northern cape is growing because you can see the films in YouTube and Facebook that they are from the Northern Cape, where we come from, in Roodepan we shooting raw talent sometimes we have to come to the set and there’s difficulties that go on the set and we cant do this and do that, it limits us and i see from now as the film industry is growing in Kimberley, its going to be bigger than we thought,” says Gabriel.
Buffel hopes his story will motivate and bring positivity to those who have given up on life and choose a world of crime.
