/ 9 June 2009

SA movie stuns Spain

South African movie Izulu Lami has stunned the Spanish, scooping two awards at the Tarifa International Pan African Film Festival, the film’s director Madoda Ncayiyana said on Tuesday.

The film won the Audience Award and Best Actress Award for its 11-year-old’s star Sobahle Mkhabase.

”When I chose Sobahle from the thousands of school children I auditioned, I knew she was a rough diamond, although she did not yet realise it herself,” said Ncayiyane in a statement.

”For a Zulu girl from a KwaZulu-Natal township, who was 10 years old when the film was shot, to win an international award against professional adult actors proves how talented our little local treasure really is,” he said.

”When I heard that I won the best actress prize, I was over the moon and my mom was even crying,” Mkhabase said on hearing the news of her win.

Izulu Lami (My Secret Sky) is the story of two young children who journey to the city from their rural homestead after their mother’s death.

It features a cast of mainly children who have never acted professionally before, and who were discovered by the director in the townships and informal settlements the of eThekwini Municipality and the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal.

Dv8 Films producer Jeremy Nathan said: ”The Audience Award is very special as it is given by the public and this will help in generating awareness for its [the film’s] South African and global releases.”

The piece was written by Julie Frederikse and Madoda Ncayiyana, and produced by Dv8 Films and Vuleka Productions.

Its first South African screening will be at the Durban International Film Festival in July. It will be released in local cinemas in August. — Sapa