It was back in 2014 that I was raving in these pages about South African director Jenna Bass and her debut feature, Love The One You Love. An entirely improvised romantic drama with thriller overtones, Love The One You Love is a remarkable bit of work that marked the arrival of a very significant talent. And now Bass has done it again.
Long in development on her more traditional feature Flat Land, Bass and a small group of friends and crew essentially got bored while waiting for the seasons to turn so that they could get started on that feature and rather than just watching time pass by they decided instead to replicate the Love The One You Love experience, packing up a micro-scale crew, four actors and their iPhones and driving off into the remote countryside to create another improvised feature. And the result is High Fantasy, Bass' second feature, now poised to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Four young, South African friends on a camping trip on an isolated farm wake up to discover they’ve all swapped bodies. As they navigate a labyrinth of so-called Rainbow Nation politics, they capture their bizarre predicament in selfie videos - with hilarious and tragic results.
Bass dives fearlessly here into race politics and the disillusionment that has taken hold of South Africa in the post Mandela years as his grand visions have failed to materialize. Take a look at the trailer below.