Interview: Andrew Mudge

“Swimming with Piranhas”

Filmmaker Andrew Mudge recently completed the first feature film shot on location on Lesotho, a developing nation surrounded by South Africa with little exposure to movie-making. He recounts the efforts to make this audience-award-winning film, everything from hauling equipment on horseback over unpaved roads to witnessing the Wild West atmosphere of the Central African Republic, and compares filmmaking in new territory to swimming with piranhas.

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What was the most challenging part of making a film in a place with no precedent for feature filmmaking?

The logistics was often a headache. Equipment broke and we couldn’t just drop into a local rental house and switch it out. Like one one day our microphone went dead, and we were filming one of the most important scenes of dialogue in the film. So we recorded it with an inferior microphone, and then we replaced all the dialogue – something called ADR – in post-production. Which was a lot of work. Also, the roads in Lesotho are very rough, brutal on our vehicles. We were traveling with horses, and we’d often unload them from the horse trailer and have them walk alongside the vehicle – that’s how bad the roads were. Our crew was inexperienced, right down to myself and my producers on a certain level. Well, just that none of us had ever made a feature film before. It was trial by fire, for all of us. We were just winging it. It’s sort of miraculous that we got that film made. All in all, there were more benefits than drawbacks to be making a film in a country where filmmaking had not been done before. Getting location permissions was easy. We got full support from the people, government folks right down to the village chiefs. I’m proud to have been able to make a film in Lesotho.

What do you hope viewers get out of your films?

I hope they walk away feeling that they got a glimpse into a really beautiful and forgotten corner of the world, which is the Kingdom of Lesotho. But more than that, I hope the story connects with them. That they feel it, empathize with the characters. I hope it entertains them, makes them smile!

How do travel and film intersect – what can they both provide for us?

Travel has often been an inspiration for storytelling for me. Stories are often about journeys, and travel is the quickest way for us to have access to that experience… The more I travel or work overseas, the more I learn to trust people, and to just have trust in the situation. It’s like swimming with piranhas. If you ever go to the Amazon, you’ll never think to go swimming in the same place where people are fishing for – and catching – piranhas. But then you look around and all the locals are swimming. So of course you jump right in. 

If you could make a film in any location, where would it be and why?

I would like to make a movie about pirates in Somalia, and have scenes where they attack an American cruise ship. I love the visuals of a band of ragamuffin Somalian kids in an African version of your uncle’s broken down Boston Whaler taking on the “Disney Dream”, or whatever those insane ships are named. It would have a energetic City of God/Slumdog Millionaire vibe to it. You’d really get to know these Somalian kids, what their stories are all about. In any case, I’m a bit late to the table on this because there’s a big hollywood movie about to come out about a cruise ship hijacked by Somalians. Starring Tom Hanks. Hopefully it doesn’t suck too bad.

What’s next for you, in terms of either film or travel? 

I’m traveling a lot to Africa these days. I just got back from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where I was filming an adventure piece for Outside Television. That place is wild, but the real wild west in Africa is CAR – the Central African Republic. The place is being seized by rebels right now, and some of their weapons are really primitive, like bows and arrows! Kids driving around in stolen pickup trucks, looting five star hotels. It’s like Mad Max over there right now. I’m glad I’m not in CAR this month. I’m going back to Lesotho and South Africa this fall to premiere The Forgotten Kingdom. We’re doing a 3 week roadshow where we take the film all over the country and screen it on a giant blow up movie screen, in the villages where we filmed. These are remote places, accessible only by four wheel drive trucks. Most of these people will have never seen a film before. So I’m very excited about that!

The Forgotten Kingdom won audience awards at the Sarasota Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, and the Ashland Independent Film Festival. Check out more about Mudge and the film here.