Indemnity is one of the most ambitious action thrillers to come out of South Africa, offering stunning set pieces and a story that feels like a combination between The Manchurian Candidate and The Fugitive. It’s no surprise, as writer-director Travis Taute created Indemnity as a love letter to the 1990s and early-2000s films that inspired him to become a filmmaker.

Indemnity follows Theo, an ex-Cape Town firefighter suffering from PTSD and whose world is rocked when he wakes up next to his wife's dead body with no recollection of what occurred. With all the evidence pointing to him as the killer, Theo finds himself on the run from the people who want him dead and struggling to put the pieces together into why he’s being hunted.

Taute chose to make Indemnity his first feature film because it’s in the genre he was obsessed with and his desire to create a character-driven action film that touched on the mental health issues that many in stereotypical masculine roles keep hidden.

“The impetus for the film came from my stumbling upon an article about soldiers who just returned from Afghanistan and were really battling to reintegrate themselves into society,” Taute explains, adding, “I’ve always been fascinated with the stigma attached to men’s mental health issues.”

He was stunned by the statistics in Africa of how many people not just live with PTSD, but are undiagnosed. He thought it would be a compelling topic to tackle within a mainstream action blockbuster film.

Writing the action film

For writers wondering how long it could take to get a film made, Taute shares that Indemnity was in development for nearly seven years, underwent several iterations, before going into pre-production. 

Taute’s process started with creating who Theo (Jarrid Geduld) was including where he’s from, his life experiences, and his emotional redemptive arc. Once his lead was defined, Taute started breaking down the major turning points in the story and using that as a baseline to create a treatment. The treatment went through various phases while Taute reread it and identified flaws and what needed improvement and elaboration.

“You have to think within this format and genre, in which there are certain expectations,” Taute says, explaining that when you call the movie an action film, there is the need for several action scenes at certain intervals. He continues, “What I knew was that we would never have the budget to make the big explosive kind of things and we needed to be very smart about what those action sequences needed to be. That’s why a lot of the big sequences are hand-to-hand combat, because they are easier and cheaper to produce.”

In developing the project with his producers, they would make decisions on where the epic scenes would be and how to put money behind it. These decisions informed Taute’s writing.

Once the treatment was locked down, he built the arcs into a beat sheet and then created an outline. From there, he drafted another three-to-four iterations of the outline before going to script. Then he wrote and rewrote several drafts of the screenplay.

Rewriting after shooting

Even after all that work, the script still changed.

“Geduld brought a particular kind of essence and quality to the character of Theo,” Taute shares of his lead actor’s role in the film. “When he came into costume, there was a certain amount of vulnerability he brought in, and I instantly knew he would be that person we needed.”

Taute recalls the experience fondly. He appreciated having one idea of what a scene would be and then how it would unfold as an organic process as both he and Geduld found the beats in the making of the film. “I enjoyed that, it was quite improvisational. There were some beats that changed, but a lot of the story points and the blueprint of the film was close to what we set up to shoot.”

But then something happened in the middle of shooting: “We got a lot of what was on the page, and we would’ve gotten more of it if it weren’t for that little thing called COVID,” Taute recalls. “We started shooting in February 2020 and got three weeks into production when the country entered a hard lockdown.”

Production stopped midway through their schedule and resumed four months later with strict protocols in place.

“It was a nerve-wracking thing for people to come back,” Taute says. Everyone was excited and passionate about the project, but there were several changes that took place when they all returned for that second window of shooting. Regarding some of the protocols, Taute explains that physical contact was prohibited. “There were no intimate scenes we could shoot and so we had to remove a lot of it. We had to adapt on the ground quite a bit with regards to the actors who were uncomfortable during the second round of filming.”

Advice on writing

“Trust your gut because there are so many options that we have in terms of form that are out there and I think it can be quite overwhelming in terms of what those influences are or where to start,” Taute advises those starting out their writing careers. “I think that the truest thing you can do as a writer is write from your own experience.”

He believes that authenticity definitely shines through and remembers knowing those situations where someone didn’t necessarily understand the depth of the character or the content they were speaking about and how audiences are clever enough to catch onto those things quickly.

“Being true to who you are and what you want to say is one of the most important things I can recommend.”

Indemnity is in theaters and On Demand February 11, 2022.