Lights! Camera! Mobile?

Moblie Phone MoviesA feature-length film made using mobile phones. Sound improbable? Not in South Africa, where a feature has just been made using eight cellphones and USD160,000, and a good idea that might just be the future of film-making.

Mobile movie director Aryan Kaganov rolls his next shotSouth African director Aryan Kaganof believes this is the way things are going and to prove it, he made SMS Sugar Man, billed as the world's first feature film shot entirely on mobile phones.

SMS Sugar Man was filmed on eight phone cameras, over 11 days, with three main characters for less than $US164,100. As well as traditional cinema screenings, the film will be beamed to cellphones in 30 three-minute episodes over the course of a month.

Kaganof says his tale of a pimp and two high-class prostitutes cruising around Johannesburg on Christmas Eve is blazing a trail for a fresh new, democratic approach to film that will cut costs of both shooting and watching movies.

Leigh Graves and Deja Bernhardt play de luxe prositutes in SMS Sugar Man"I thought cinema in South Africa wasn't the appropriate medium to represent who we are ... it's a mostly white phenomenon, " Kaganof says, "Then it struck me that a medium that Africans love more than any other is the cellphone."

Kaganof, ironically, bought his first cellphone last year just to make the film, but has dismissed concerns about quality and said the footage looked "fabulous" when blown up to the standard 35mm feature film size.

Films made in or about Africa may be grabbing audiences outside the world's poorest continent, but at home – where most people cannot afford a night out at the cinema – audiences are very small, making it tough for filmmakers to break even.

Finding a low-budget model as in Nigeria, where the homegrown "Nollywood" industry is hugely popular, is the only way of ensuring a future for South African film, Kaganof maintains.

SMS Sugar Man premieres in May, but cost just a fraction of What many low-budget local films cost. Hollywood pictures typically cost between $US40 million and $US50 million and often go over the $US100 million mark.

"We wanted to make a radically low-budget film to show that anyone can do this," said producer Michelle Wheatley. "There are a lot of people in Africa who want to make films and can't afford it."

The cheap technology used to shoot SMS Sugar Man means the cameras are always rolling, making for a fresher, more dynamic and fluid movie, with room to experiment.

"We just had a bunch of mobiles and we let it run," said Wheatley. "That allowed our actresses to explore the story and to improvise - to try stuff out that they wouldn't have done if they'd had a camera pointing in their faces."

One problem that seems to have been overlooked is that film fans wanting to watch SMS Sugar Man on their phones will need an up-to-date camera-equipped handset. Cellphone use has exploded across the African continent, but only a rich minority have the latest gadgets.

With all the talk of empowering Africa, it is surprising that none of the three main characters, including Kaganof who also acts in the film, are black. But Kaganof argues that "we are past all that", despite the deep divisions in South Africa 12 years after the end of apartheid. He maintains that the technology behind SMS Sugar Man gives Africa a chance to stop copying the West and set its own agenda.

"What we are doing is exciting, it's innovative and we are pressing the buttons that the world will follow. It is an African film," he said.