Hollywood in Muldersdrift: a Spaghetti Western shot in Sou Africa

The Salvation, a Western shot on Nash's Farm near Muldersdrift, is probably one of the biggest international films to come out of South Africa. Set in the 1870s, among new settlers and outlaws in the Old West, it was highly acclaimed this week at The London Film Festival. Marianne Gray spoke to the director at the London Film Festival about shooting in South Africa.

The Salvation premiered at the London Film Festival and is due for UK release later this year.

Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Eric Cantona, Jonathan Pryce, Douglas Henshall and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, The Salvation is directed by Denmark's Kristian Levring, a co-production with South Africa's Spier Films.

We could never have shot it in America because we didn't have the budget, Levring said, but I knew South Africa from shooting commercials and holidays there and I know the film industry there is as professional as anywhere. I think we only had five non-South Africans on the production side and all our extras, stuntmen, crew were local.

The landscapes were big and every detail proved just right for a real' Western. Mythical landscapes. I love filming in waste, barren landscapes. (A previous film of Levring's, The King is Alive, was shot at Kolmanskop in Namibia.)

We had to go to Utah to films a few mountains which we added to the film to make it right as the Magaliesburg weren't quite right. We even found a railway line near Pretoria which was accessible for the shots of the steam train. And the weather was perfect! Your winter, those big blue skies and not too warm for a Danish person.

Levring met producer Mike Auret, of Spier Films, through an introduction and they liked each other, recognising a huge mutual love for the Western and the American myth they'd both savoured since their schoolboy Saturday matinee days

Growing up in Zimbabwe and South Africa the Western stood out for us kids, recalls Auret. For all of us it was a film we could never imagine doing and it was an amazing privilege to be part of the process. A meeting of minds.

We'd looked at India, Canada, Croatia and the US as locations but they weren't cost effective. South Africa stood out especially because there are good government incentives in place for film makers. That's a big thing to shout about for international filmmakers. A shoot in the US would have been more than twice the cost.

By a twist of fate one of their Western towns they built of wooden frame buildings burned down on the last day. We don't know how it started but luckily we had the fire-trucks there.

The Salvation is being released in Britain by Warner Brothers and in South Africa by Universal Films.

It premiered at the London Film Festival and is due for UK release later this year.

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