Luke Graham chats to the creators of Plot for Peace…
Plot for Peace, which came out in the UK a few weeks ago, but was first released in November in France, is the revealing documentary about a little-known piece of history. Jean-Ives Ollivier, a French-Algerian businessman, is presented to the audience as an architect for peace in South Africa, working behind the scenes in the corridors of power to bring down apartheid and even, as the film implies, help bring about the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990.
The story of this unassuming Frenchmen, a commodities trader who made his fortune selling grain, was initially discovered by Mandy Jacobson (Calling the Ghosts), the producer and director of Plot for Peace. A veteran documentary-maker, she had already made four documentaries about Nelson Mandela for SABC:
“I run a project for a foundation which has started a very ambitious heritage project which collects the stories of people that have contributed to South Africa’s democracy and we hope to grow it into recording the rest of Africa’s story. We collect the testimonies of people who are making a difference on the continent.
“Through that process we collect a lot of archive, through which we research and put these stories together. Our target audience is young people, and the rest of the world, in order to start a dialogue about our history, so we can learn more than just what we read in textbooks!
“Through that process, we came across this sliver of archive footage, of a curious, mysterious businessman, who had been referred to in the voice over as “Monsieur Jacques” who’d helped in a prisoner exchange, and that obviously piqued our interest.
“We had no idea who he was, least of all that he was from Africa (Jean-Ives grew up in Algiers). Thus began our whole story of realizing that we had this incredibly gem in our hands, and what Carlos (Agulló, the film’s editor and other director) has done so well is that we are able to bring the personal and historical together. That was the unique opportunity that we had”
Agulló, a Spanish film editor who’s worked on over twenty films and directed a number of short films, was quite calm about making the jump to directing a feature length film. He was more bothered about the film’s genre:
“Length was not much of a new thing. The main difference was going from fiction to documentary, because all the films I’ve worked in were fiction. It was very interesting, especially in the editing process, when you were working with archival material, which was shot for a very different narrative purpose. Using that footage with music that you have had someone compose, within a narrative structure, was very interesting.”
The sheer amount and quality of the archival footage in Plot for Peace is one of the film’s main drawing points. As Jacobson explained, gathering all that footage is no easy task:
“It takes a tremendous amount of resources; we worked with a brilliant researcher who specialises in that in South Africa. His mandate was really to ensure that all the different countries that were involved in the conflict, such as Russia, Cuba, Angola, Namibia, were researched and included. And that’s an extraordinary privilege as that’s very expensive; the price is to first unearth it, then to license it.”
Getting the footage wasn’t really the hard part: it was getting the film’s central figure, Jean-Ives Ollivier, to agree to make the film in the first place:
“I said no.” Ollivier explains. However, Jacobson is a persistent person and after a year or so, got him to agree: “But Mandy used very good arguments to convince me, so I had said yes.” When asked whether his experience had given him a taste for movie-making, the charming Frenchmen replied: “Ah no, I said ‘it’s the first one and the last one’.”
With Ollivier finally onboard, Jacobson contacted Agulló about directing the film:
“When I got first called by Mandy, she had already tracked down Jean-Ives and convinced him to make the documentary. When I was contacted I was shocked, as I hadn’t done documentaries before, and I was not an expert on African politics or history. But Mandy explained we had Stephen Smith (a historical consultant who was the writer of Plot for Peace), the historical advisor and script writer to cover that part, and the idea was to make the film feel more like a thriller than a historical documentary, so they did want someone with a fictional background.”
An aim which Agulló masterfully fulfils in the film, which is shot and edited like an episode of House of Cards; in an opening scene, we see Mr Ollivier sitting alone in a serious setting playing a game of solitaire, which serves as the film’s shorthand for how Ollivier played people and events like a deck of cards.
However the film faced other challenges, as Jacobson reflects:
“The main challenge is about balancing the personal, character driven narrative with historical accuracy. And between myself, Carlos, and Stephen Smith, that was the tightrope that we were always treading.”
Jean-Ives interjects at this point, explaining that the film could not compromise when it came to the real history: “Intransigent. The historical fact was always priming the movie making. You really wanted the history to be right.”
Jacobson expands on this point about the importance of intransigence:
“Exactly, the credibility of history [was important], which is why we had Stephen Smith there. Stephen was a journalist who lived those events, he wasn’t sitting in an armchair saying ‘oh yes that’s right, history is in the eye of the beholder.’ It was really about credible history and then we had the personal story of Jean-Ives, who was our taxi man (our taxi driver was the word that we used in the beginning) who then obviously helped us connect all the dots in a very complex story.
“So it’s really difficult to think who are you trying to reach; you want to engage young people; you want to engage yourself and an older generation, who might not necessarily have a love of African history but do have a love of really interesting, mysterious stories; and how you find that balance between telling the audience about these immensely complex historical issues.”
It would seem the film-makers managed to find that balance as the documentary has been successful: it has garnered a series of nominations and awards. For Agulló, however, these are not the main signs of success:
“It’s always good to be selected in festivals and win awards, and I think personally for me the main gratification is the Q&As after we show the movie. [When] We have feedback from the audience and discuss [the film] with people, that is where I have the feeling that we’ve done something that is really reaching people and making them think. I think that is the main reward.”
Even though the story of the film is not centred on Mandela (mainly as he was in prison during the events depicted by the film), he remains a presence throughout the film: members of the ANC feature heavily and his widow, Winnie Mandela, is interviewed. Unfortunately, the film-makers were unable to interview the man himself, even though the documentary was made before his death in December last year. Ollivier explained why they were unable to include him:
“No, because at the time it was decided he was already very weak and tired. If I have one regret: we could have done the movie two or three years ago if I was not stupid enough to say no, we probably would have had Mr Mandela.”
Agulló expanded on this point, describing how there was a time-limit to make this documentary:
“I think that’s also one of the very interesting things about making this movie, was the fact that all the people that played a role in the political change are now in their 70s, 80s or 90s. There are already some people who were not available because they had passed away or were too old. Some of our interviewees even now are too old to give interviews, because of health issues, and some of them, in the best case, will probably not be around in 30 or 40 years. So if the story is not told now, because nobody knows about this story, even the most expert African historians. Even our researcher and script writer, who had been to all these places and covered these events, he had heard of jean-Ives Ollivier, but nobody knew the same person was behind the scenes in all these initially unrelated events. It was really something that had to be told.
“Even if Jean-Ives had told us afterward the story, we didn’t want to go and interview a historian or journalist to give us their witness point of view, we wanted the people involved: the actors in the story who really took part in the plot with Jean-Ives, because the movie would never have been the same [without them].
For a final question, I wanted to know what advice these three had for young, ambitious people who wanted to make movies:
Mandy Jacobson: “Become a grain trader!”
Carlos Agulló: “You have to work, work, work, very hard and enjoy your work. Don’t work for what will come: you have to enjoy what you are doing at the moment as that’s the only way to get good at it.”
MJ: “Make your own movies. Don’t wait around for someone to give you the job! I think in today’s world where technology has democratised the process, it’s really about casting characters in documentaries.
Jean-Ives Ollivier: “I saw a report or an article about 12 Years A Slave. I mean, this is a true story. And why it interests so many people is because it is a true story, and why Argo interests so many is because it is a true story. The world is looking for true stories and not fiction…”
Click here for a review of Plot for Peace.
Plot for Peace is available for DVD now.
Plot for Peace is written by Stephen Smith, directed by Mandy Jacobson and Carlos Agulló, and produced by the African Oral History Archive. Original Music by Antony Partos. Original Song ‘Waterfall’, produced and performed by Blue May and Nik Yiannikas
Extras include ‘Making Plot For Peace’ – exclusive interviews with Jean-Yves Ollivier and directors (12mins), the official UK trailer (2mins) and more from the African Oral History Archive: ‘Winnie Mandela: In Her Own Words’ – EXTRACT (6mins) / ‘The Foreign Minister’ – EXTRACT (7mins) / ‘Women Of Style’ – EXTRACT (8mins)
Cert.12 Running Time: 81mins Subtitles: Eng, Fr, Sp, De, Por
Luke Graham is a writer and works in newspaper production. If you enjoyed this review, follow him @LukeWGraham and check out his blog here.
