What was the motivation behind this documentary?

Rehad: The Gupta leaks provided an opportunity to show what was really happening behind all the rhetoric of radical economic transformation and the media being a tool of white monopoly capital.

Mark: I wanted to address my feelings of outrage on reading the Gupta leak revelations that followed like a torrent, telling us how bad the corruption was. And, a sense that something needed to be done to explain the modus operandi of State Capture, which was precisely what the leaks did. Added to this was the anger that this was all managed with enablers from the business community, such as the banks and accounting firms, and that here we were faced by something that not only had international connections but also replicated other instances of State Capture around the globe.

Creator, Rehad Desai

It’s brilliantly shot. Please tell us about the logistics. How difficult (or otherwise) was it to shoot? And how long did it take you?

Rehad: We shot the film over 18 months and sought to make the material as congruent with specific beats of the story as possible. Content led the form. It is an international story so it was important that we show as much as possible.

You obviously have a passion to shoot real life stories and ones that are most meaningful and impactful to society, where does the inspiration to do such work come from?

Rehad: We both come from activist backgrounds and this impulse remains a strong vein in our story telling. In the wider sense we tell the stories we do as part of a strategic response to the questions we face as society.

Mark: Yes. For me the passion to produce these kinds of films is because I care about human rights. I am moved by the people who stand up and speak truth to power and I see documentary as a way also of engaging with viewers at an emotional as well as a head level. In the bad old days of Apartheid, I was put in solitary confinement for my documentary work. I was thrown out of the country and when I returned it was through my films that I found a way to contribute to rebuilding this society.

The documentary leaves one fuming mainly because the individuals involved in state capture still haven’t been held accountable nor behind bars yet (which is where they all belong). Do you think it will ever get to that stage or be fully resolved?

Rehad: COVID 19 has placed everything on pause but I am confident that we will come out much stronger, with much more emphasis on caring and accountability in the interest of people. We now have a window of opportunity to reset course.

Director, Mark J Kaplan

Mark: Fully resolved? Unfortunately I don’t think this will be the case. The rot runs too deep. I do not think there is sufficient political will to hold all those responsible to account. Corruption as evidenced in the film is just the tip of the iceberg. What chance that all those politically connected see their day in court? Our institutions have been eviscerated.  The huge cost of this is today playing out in the context of the Corona virus. Our state coffers are barren. Our people have been fleeced and are impoverished. They were supposed to be the beneficiaries, not the victims. That leaves us all naked and vulnerable. And angry.

On the other hand, the story we tell in the film is also a story of hope, of brave people standing up at great personal cost to corruption, to misused political power. And it is also a story of institutional resilience in the form of the judiciary and the fourth estate.

Great and very patriotic individuals in their own right. In the fight against corruption and equality for all in our country there’s no doubt that we need more stories like these. The only way we will have progress is to make sure that all the rot is brought to bare with equal, appropriate action taken swiftly. Thank you to storytellers such as Rehad and Mark who continually play a role in getting us one step closer to true freedom, befitting of what tomorrow signals, Freedom Day. If you haven’t seen it then make sure to watch How To Steal A Country currently streaming on Showmax.

Our thanks to the Showmax Team for granting us this opportunity. It goes without saying that this very well also extends to both Rehad Desai and Mark J Kaplan for their time.

The whole saga has been documented in How To Steal A Country, and is coming to all our screens thanks to Showmax and the brilliant minds behind it that include Rehad Desai (responsible for definitive documentaries on Marikana and #feesmustfall) and the multi-award-winning co-directer Mark J Kaplan (The Village Under The Forest) both of whom we’ve managed to secure a fantastic interview with, be sure to lookout for that real soon! The minute Showmax sent us word on this one we immediately pounced, after all that’s what really good reality TV is all about right?

The documentary plainly offers us an unflinching gaze to another defining moment in our country’s recent history: the rise and fall of the Gupta family. Before we go into our thoughts, a quick word is deserved on how brilliantly shot the entire documentary is, everything from the footage captured and included, to the various interviews (which include some political big hitters) conducted, to the different locations. It’s easy to tell that the production was carried out by experts and testament to the expertise involved.

Now onto our thoughts. What you will experience while watching this one is pure frustration, anger, disbelief and many other feelings we can’t even begin to describe…at least that’s how we felt. It’s also an excellent advert for great investigative journalism which is consequently one of the biggest things that enabled the entire corruption to come crashing down and crumble. A special mention is afforded to the numerous journalists who all played a pivotal role in bringing this story to bare with one of them firmly being investigative journalist Thanduxolo Jika who features heavily in the documentary and had the below to say:

“It’s been almost ten years of unabated looting. They estimate that it’s close to a trillion that the whole state capture debacle cost the country. A country that has got the highest unemployment rate, the highest rate of people who live in poverty. A trillion could have changed their lives.”  

The above is just one of the many mind boggling revelations one comes across whilst watching. If anything, this perfectly illustrates how the pursuit of money and power can lead some to abandon their basic decency and values. Not to get political or anything (which we steer away from here as much as we can) but if you are still convinced that Jacob Zuma was removed prematurely and should still be Commander and Chief of the country, especially after watching this then, honestly, you need to get your head examined and reexamined numerously afterwards.

The documentary is hard to watch but one that every citizen of the country needs to see. The amount of money that has been looted, the major individuals/companies (Eskom, KPMG, McKinsey etc.) involved, the destruction it has left our country (loadshedding and massive debts being a few) and more sadly, how the individuals involved are still not held accountable is beyond any logic.

Spanning exactly 93 minutes, How To Steal A Country is, as we mentioned prior, essential viewing for all South Africans who want to understand their country. It is officially screening first on Showmax from tomorrow, 23 April 2020, just in time for the Freedom Day long weekend. Highly recommended, PLEASE WATCH!

An enormous thank you to the Showmax team for allowing us to be one of the few to see this one first and give our thoughts.

With the Emmy-winning Miners Shot Down and One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival winner Everything Must Fall, Rehad Desai made the definitive documentaries on Marikana and #feesmustfall respectively. Now, in How To Steal A Country, co-directed by the multi-award-winning Mark J Kaplan (The Village Under The Forest), Desai turns his unflinching gaze to another defining moment in South Africa’s recent history: the rise and fall of the Gupta family.

As editor Ferial Haffajee puts it in the documentary, “They came here as traders. They sold shoes out of the boot of their car… And they left here as multi-billionaires.”

Desai’s take on how they accomplished that is a suspenseful detective story uncovering one huge bribery scandal after another, involving the top echelons of political power and several well-known multinational corporations. As investigative journalist Thanduxolo Jika says in the documentary, “It’s been almost ten years of unabated looting. They estimate that it’s close to a trillion that the whole state capture debacle cost the country. A country that has got the highest unemployment rate, the highest rate of people who live in poverty. A trillion could have changed their lives.”  

As hard as it is to watch that much money leave South Africa in just 93 minutes, How To Steal A Country is essential viewing for all South Africans who want to understand their country. It is officially screening first on Showmax from Thursday, 23 April 2020, just in time for the Freedom Day long weekend.

No doubt this should make for a very intriguing watch and we’re going to get the chance to see it first before it’s officially released for public consumption thanks to the cool kids at Showmax. Be sure to be on the lookout for our thoughts on it real soon!