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"I always knew this day would come. I never doubted it. Something made it inevitable...."  :wink:

Your friendly neighborhood South African has made it onto the pages of our in-house magazine.  :teddyr:

No link yet, but here's the text:

TREVOR T. MOSES
NATIONAL FILM, VIDEO AND SOUND ARCHIVES

Note to the unwary reader: I do not take myself seriously (therefore the tongue-in-cheek nature of some of the replies) but I do take my work seriously.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WITH DAC?

Since December 1, 1989. I remember standing under a tree waiting for people to arrive at the NFVSA offices: it was a Friday at 07h30. I never thought then that I had found my life’s work here but I did. That tree is still here and so am I.

WHERE, WHEN AND WHY WERE YOU BORN?

I was born in Bulawayo in what was then Rhodesia on 11th September, 1967. There were allegedly almost four hours of darkness across the country after I was born but that was only because I came into the world at 02h30 am. Strange to be born in a place where that place’s name roughly translates as ‘place of the killing’. That covers the ‘where’ and the ‘when’: I have no idea ‘why’.

DO YOU HAVE A PERSONAL MOTTO THAT YOU STRIVE TO LIVE UP TO?

“When in doubt, get the hell out”. Seriously, my life’s motto and my driving force is contained in the words DON’T TELL ME THAT I CAN’T. I CAN AND I WILL, BECAUSE I MUST. Way too many people have told me “you can’t” in my 45 years of life: I metaphorically stick two fingers up at them all by proving them all wrong.

WHAT DOES THE T IN YOUR NAME STAND FOR?

It stands for Trouble. Actually, it stands for Thomas, after my Dad.

WHAT DO YOU DO AT THE NFVSA?

I do pretty well, actually. Seriously, I handle client enquiries, assist with feature film and documentary film productions, assist people on site, deliver films to the transfer facilities, and assist with outreach and screenings. If clients become troublesome, I assist them too: I assist them out of the building.

YOUR MOST HONEST THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORK YOU DO?

If I could do the job I do for free, I would. That is how much it means to me to make a difference for our clients, no matter how small that difference is, even if it means that they go to another department and complain, saying “Trevor at DAC assisted me beyond the call of duty, what is wrong here?” My hobby has become my work and I get paid for it too: what could be better?

ANY STRANGE THINGS IN THE NFVSA COLLECTION?

Other than the tunnels under the NFVSA floors and the haunted area of the building, we have two odd films here. The 1941 feature film OHM KRUGER which was made as a gift for the people of South Africa by the Nazis and an episode of the STAR TREK television series: the one where the Starship Enterprise gets itself swallowed by a giant space amoeba. We also have the actual Kruger Millions in our vaults: when I tell visitors this, their eyes light up until I produce the reels of the 1967 feature film.

WHO ARE YOUR LIFE AND WORK MENTORS, IF ANY?

My parents introduced me to cinema at a very young age: they had to drag me kicking and screaming into a cinema when I was seven: kicking and screaming because I didn’t want to go in. When the film MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was over, they had to drag me kicking and screaming out because I didn’t want to leave. My work mentors have been and are the South African filmmakers Jans Rautenbach, David Millin and Vincent Cox, as well as my colleagues Brenda Kotze and Luana Brewis, who has just retired.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE AND LEAST FAVOURITE FILMS?

My favourite film of all time is AN EYE FOR AN EYE starring Chuck Norris and I have way too many South African favourite films. My least favourite South African films are LASER MISSION with Brandon Lee and THE DEMON with Cameron Mitchell. While those last two are fairly enjoyable despite their badness, the films I detest the most are the so-called “anti-South African” genre of films, such as LETHAL WEAPON 2, CRY FREEDOM, A DRY WHITE SEASON and A WORLD APART, i.e. films made by foreign filmmakers who conveniently ignore the problems in their own countries and choose to focus on South Africa instead. South Africans must tell their own stories: not anyone else.

NOTABLE HIGHLIGHTS IN YOUR CAREER THUS FAR?

There are many but I am most proud of assisting on the Academy Award winning documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN (which I urge all colleagues to see), I was David Millin ASC’s camera operator for a day and I managed to make Leon Schuster laugh when he visited the NFVSA many years ago. I also am very proud of the fact that I stole twelve reels of a South African film from a lab in Johannesburg on hearing that we were not allowed to remove them as the reels were going to be destroyed. I once screened a film for a dying person (who had acted in that film) and her family told me that it eased her way.

I am also proud of the fact that, due to my knowledge of our film industry’s history, I am able to serve as kind of an Obi-Wan Kenobi to the young filmmakers and film students. I always tell them that the worst thing they can be told is “You can’t” and to listen to me as I tell them that they can.

ANY FUNNY THINGS THAT HAVE OCCURRED AT WORK?

When I assist in outreach film screenings, I have a habit of chatting to people before the film starts in order to tell them about the existence and activities of the NFVSA. When I first tried this, someone in the cinema told me to shut up and sit down as they wanted to see the film. I screened the eerie film RIDE THE HIGH WIND for a scout troop in Mpumalanga and got such a fright at one point, I fell off my chair. I once screened the film JANNIE TOTSIENS to a paying audience at a cinema in Oudtshoorn and the film had to be stopped halfway through due to a reel fault. The thing I wasn’t aware of was that the film’s director was in the audience.  :buggedout:

HOPES FOR THE NFVSA IN THE FUTURE?

In short, I would like to see the NFVSA become the flagship and standard bearer for the DAC and I have twenty years left here, if I’m lucky, so that would be nice to see before I retire. I should just add that my ghost will haunt this place when I pass on one day so the future NFVSA clients will still be assisted by me in one way or another.

 :bouncegiggle: like it

Nice stuff trev. I have actually never seen "An Eye For An Eye" so will make an effort to check it out....

Thanks: my review is on here too - my first published work.  :teddyr:

Congrats!  With your knowledge and genuine friendly personality make an interview a great thing!

Love your sense of humor, my man. Keep up the good and odd work!

So, Trevor, if I came to South Africa, you think they would hire me as your assistant?

I'm only half joking as I would love to get a fresh start AND do something that believe I would love.

You left yourself wide open for that one, Trevor!  :teddyr:

I'm thrilled for you,my dear. I agree with Andrew....you're clever and smart and so ready to help people.
(((HUGS!!!)))

Aww: thanks, Andrew.  :smile:

When I become famous one day, you have first bite at a podcast interview with me.  :smile:

I like the good and especially the 'odd'.  :thumbup:

I received a one line enquiry this morning: a virtual demand, not a request. That one I file under 'odd'.  :wink:

Sure.  :teddyr:


To be honest, this is not an easy job I have. A case in point: I received a complaint about a month ago, saying that my place of work was useless as not everything was on our website. :question:  My reply was "Tell me what you want, email me a wishlist and I will find what we have or do not have."

It is that simple. Complaints like that give you pause.

 :teddyr: :teddyr:

I certainly did: I saw the making of feature about Raiders and Karen Allen *SIGH* admitted that she did klonk Harrison Ford on the jaw a few times when she threw that punch.  :buggedout:

Aww.... *HUGS*  :smile:

You "detest" A DRY WHITE SEASON? 

No offense or disrespect intended, AHD but I detest not just that one, but any anti-South African film. I did however buy a VHS of it for the archives as I did with Lethal Weapon 2 and Cry Freedom.

Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) was pretty blatant in its anti-white...I mean, anti-apartheid message. This movie was my first glimpse into the politics of Danny Glover, an actor whose movies that I boycott with half-measures these days; meaning that while I don't flat-out avoid his movies anymore, I am definitely not in a big rush to run out and watch a movie that has him in the casting line-up.

I was 15 years old when that movie came out, and even back then the movie rubbed me the wrong way, and I'm an American too! Remember, that was when the whole "FREE NELSON MANDELA" fad was going on here in the States, too. When I read up a little on Umkhonto we Sizwe, the anti-apartheid group that Mandela co-founded and what that group did to innocent civilians in South Africa, I can see why he was thrown in jail. Kinda like when the U.S. Government imprisoned Geronimo for much the same reasons; even as a Native American, I can understand that people have to get punished for their crimes, regardless of how noble that their efforts might be perceived to be. After all, Robin Hood, when you boil it all down, was still nothing but a common criminal.

No offense taken.  I think I need to learn more about South African politics.  I might have seen A DRY WHITE SEASON, but, I don't remember it well.  It's true there was a lot of support in the USA at the time of the film's release for NELSON MANDELA, but particular ramifications regarding your homeland I am ignorant of. 

I have a German friend who told me that she loathes Stanley Kramer's Judgement At Nuremberg in the same way that I loathe Cry Freedom.

JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG has its dated flaws also.  I like that movie, but recognize its shortcomings.  With a lot of older films, casting choices are expedient, as are scripts.