‘Real Estate Sisters’ Producers on the Struggle to Find Black Crew in South Africa and What They Did to Tackle the Problem

variety.com:

Thinus Ferreira Guest Contributor Producing successful Black female-fronted comedy in South Africa is no joke but Black female producers and writers Reabetswe Moeti-Vogt and Zoe Ramushu are determined to bring about change in front of and behind the lens.

Their film “Real Estate Sisters” screened this week at the 6th Joburg Film Festival in South Africa. “Real Estate Sisters” might be a laugh-a-minute on screen but is part of a much longer, broader and tenacious fight behind the scenes to transform an industry that is still resistant to opening up and making space for more varied voices.

The comedy, which shot in 2022 for three weeks, made with funding from the National Film and Video Foundation and Netflix, stars two Black female leads, Gina Koffman and Leera Mthethwa, and revolves around two broke but sassy real estate sisters going from selling rundown apartments to selling high-end homes.

Under their Totem Zea Collective banner, Moeti-Vogt was helmer-writer of the project with Ramushu, as producer. Ramushu is also co-founder of Sisters Working in Film and Television (Swift) with Moeti-Vogt, who is a Swift board member of the non-profit established in 2016 to support, protect and represent women working in the country’s film biz.