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South African Films

May 17, 2011 by Jenni Baxter

FEATURE FILMS

MAKEBA

script development complete, raising finance

Tagline

Freedom is not given, you must take it

Logline

Ambitious diva Miriam Makeba leaves apartheid South Africa in search of freedom. When fame fails, she finds personal liberation in being the voice of Africa.

Synopsis

In 1959 South African songbird Miriam Makeba seizes her chance to escape apartheid oppression. As the protege of Harry Belafonte in New York she quickly achieves fames, but is barred from returning to her homeland.

Miriam’s marriage to radical Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael precipitates the sudden end of her US career. She is exiled again, this time to Guinea in West Africa. When a friend there is accused of treason, Miriam feels compelled to choose political expediency over personal loyalty.

Achkar Marof is executed. Haunted by his death, Miriam cannot sing. The trials of life in exile prove to be the crucible in which she discovers her true voice. As Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba comes to embody the spirit of the Pan African liberation movement and brings African music to a global audience.

Underlying Makeba’s unique musical journey is the universal story of a woman claiming her independence.

By realizing her full potential as an artist, activist and healer, she inspired freedom-loving people everywhere.

Moving between two time periods a decade apart, this telling explores how Miriam Makeba’s personal life informed her politics and how politics tranformed her music.

From civil rights era New York, the story harks back to the shanty towns of Johannesburg and culminates at the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle Concert in Zaire.

OTELA BURNING

post-production

Tagline
Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose.

Logline
When a poor township boy with a deep, traditional fear of the water is offered a chance to escape the violence of his community through surfing, he is forced to choose between friendship and his dream.

WHIPLASH

script development complete, raising finance

Tagline
What will it take to open her heart?

Logline
An emotionally numb prostitute becomes pregnant and with the help of some strong belly dancing women, must give up her drugs, face her buried shame and come to life.

SPOON

post-production, raising finance

Tagline
What would you die for?

Logline
A man with a medical condition that causes him to black out during moments of extreme stress is unable to fight back, until one day he forgets to take his numbing medication. For the first time in his life he has the opportunity to be remarkable, only if he is willing to risk everything.

RETRIBUTION

complete

Tagline
It’s Misery with a twist of Cape Fear

Logline
A retired judge writing his memoirs at an isolated cabin takes in a hiker lost in the wilderness. Only the hiker is not really lost and this is no chance meetings.

THE WHALE CALLER

script development complete, raising finance

Logline
From misanthropic alienation, after the painful, successive deaths of his parents he finally realizes that Human connection is the key to whleness, love and happiness!

KHABZELA

raising finance

Tagline
The truthwill set you free.

Logline
A talented young South African radio DJ rises to fame from the streets of Soweto but when he becomes ill with AIDS, he denies responsibility, until he realizes he has infected the woman he loves.

SUPERMAMA

in development

Tagline
She’s a heavyweight Superhero!

Logline
When Doris, an ordinary yet stubborn mama from Alexandra meets mysterious kung fu expert Mr Hung, he helps her turn herself into an unconventional superhero. When her success launches her into the public eye, her pride prevents her from bringing a dangerous gang and the corrupt Police Commissioner to justice, which leads to the kidnapping of those she loves most.

SAVING SUNNYSHORE

script development complete

Tagline
They picked the wrong fight!

Logline
Sunnyshore is under threat. When Mega, self-elected mini-Mayor, discovers the real Mayor’s plot to demolish her late father’s community centre; she sets off to find the only one who can save her dad’s legacy – Mandela. But with teh Mayor and his spidery consort hell-bent on stopping her, much more than Sunnyshore is at risk!

DE JONG AND THE RUSTLERS

in development

Tagline
Branding is everything – ask any entrepreneur

Logline
Lebona, a quixotic young horseman from Lesotho, is convinced he’s descended from ancient warrior king Moshoeshoe, so he sets out to avenge an insult by rancher Kobus de Jong by rustling a vast herd of Kobus’ cattle in revenge. He enlists the help of a ragtag young bnch of gun-toting misfits, but he has reckoned without the relentless pursuit of the Boer, who tracks Lebona high into the snowy reaches of the mountain kingdom where Lebona finally realises, he must confront his destiny in an epic showdown.

FOUR CORNERS

raising finance

Tagline
Criminal Gangster, Chess Prodigy or Real Family

Logline
The four corners of a chessboard and the four corners of a prison cell are the battlegrounds for the soul of teenage ghetto kid, Ricardo Galam, and he has to choose.

STOCKHOLM, ZULULAND

raising finance

Tagline
They’re not looking for a hand up. They’re looking for a handout.

Logline
When Swedish donors decide to see how their funds are being spent in the small South African township of Stockholm on a farm in Zululand, hard-working, honest, local teacher Moses must participate in a grand deception to keep the funds flowing. But what if he falls in love with the Swedish team leader?

TIN OF PAINT

raising finance

Tagline
Pushed too far…any man fights back

Logline
When a misunderstanding draws an apoliticial man into deadly altercation with the police, it sparks South Africa’s first anti-apartheid uprising. As a moment of racist stupidity explodes into a weekend of hell, he is forced to choose between vengeful anger and a growing sense of what’s worth fighting for and how…

THE CONSEQUENCE

script development, raising finance

Tagline
Is it your nature to kill?

Logline
Who do you choose to be, alone in a 250 million year old desert, when you are faced by an unpredictable, savage intelligence, genetically unrelated to humans, that mirrors the violence of your own collective back at you?

Hitchcock meets Steven King. The Consequence, offers a fresh and intelligent take on fear in a haunting setting, with a never seen before antagonist.

ZAMBEZIA (Animation)

post-production

Tagline
No bird is an island.

Logline
A high-spirited young falcon determined to be independent of his stifling father discovers that the greatest thing he can fight for is community.

STATE OF VIOLENCE

complete

Tagline
The past is not another country.

Logline
When the wife of a successful black businessman with roots in the struggle against apartheid is murdered by a young stranger who knows his name, he has to go back into his own past to find the answers that will lead him to the killer. But when he finds him and the reasons for the murder, will vengeance still be possible?

ROEPMAN

complete

Tagline
Innocence is only known once it is lost

Logline
Roepman tells the story of a twelve year old boy, Timus, and his own loss of innocence. As the story unfolds, it shows the transformation of a 1966 railway family trapped in the structural violence caused by the church and the government of the day seen through the eyes of Timus on his quest to try and make sense of the world around him.

ZINZI AND THE BOONDOGLE (Children’s Fantasy)

Tagline
When you face your fear, something magical happens

Logline
What happens when it is time to pay the Boondogle? Zinzi and her younger brothers find out when the magical creature enslaves their little sister, andthey risk everything on a fantastical urban quest around Cape Town to rescue her from his clutches.

– SOUTH AFRICA DOCUMENTARIES –

SURFING SOWETO

complete

Tagline
‘Dogtown and the Z Boys’ meets ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ – on the streets of Soweto.

Logline
The coming of age story of a group of Soweto teenagers who surf moving trains.

DEAR MANDELA

post-production

Logline
Three young people wh live in the slums of South Africa resist mass eviction and lead a new generation that follows in Mandela’s footsteps.

AFROPOLITAN

in development

Tagline
Imagining the city that is yet to be

Logline
Dancers collaborate with architects to imagine the future of the new African city.

REBIRTH

post-production

Tagline
“Please don’t talk about me when I am gone.”

Logline
This is a film about a freedom fighter turned music man, who opened a club in a former whites only suburb of Brixton and when he was told to shut down, decided to hold a final concert calling on the spirit of Billie Holiday.

– SHORT FILMS –

DIRTY LAUNDRY

complete

Tagline
Soap, spies and dirty shirts

Logline
A young man tries to do his washing at a late-night laundromat, and is accosted by a range of strange and seedy characters during his wash, rinse and dry cycle.

UMKHUNGO

post-production

Tagline
Don’t stay too long in the shadows.

Logline
A disillusioned Johannesburg street thug rescues an orphaned child with uncontrollable supernatural powers. On the run, he must help the sickly boy master his gift before a superstitious family member finds them.

Filed Under: South African Films

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