Johnny Masilela
Twenty-four screenplays drawn from across Africa are set to find their way into the ever-growing collective of motion pictures attempting to tell the African story.
Angie Mills, of the Johannesburg-based Mamaland Productions, said the 24 scripts were shortlisted from a total of just over 400 synopses, treatments, short stories, story ideas and even the first drafts of 30-minute short films.
“The result is a wide selection of themes ranging from culture to crime,” Mills said in an interview.
Funding had already been obtained from the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology for the script development stage of the series, affectionately named Under the Southern Skies.
An overwhelming majority of the stories on the shortlist – 17 in number – came from South Africa. But still, Mills said she was disappointed by the South Africans’ obsession with the theme of crime, particularly from among those which could not make the final list of 24.
Writers from elsewhere, she said, came up with different themes such as circumcision and intimacy.
“Many [South African] writers write about crime in a way that is not even interesting to the reader. Others attempted to come across with issue-based stories, some of which were simply an exercise in the politically-correct kind of narrative.”
Three of the selected stories came from Kenya, and one each from Zambia, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Mills said six of the stories were at an advanced stage of script development. Five of these were written by South Africans, while one came from Mauritius.
They are Thresholds by Dawn Garish from Western Cape, Night of the Midnight Appointment by Gibson Mvubelo of Mpumalanga, The Vice-Chancellor, the Chicken and the Mayor by Marion Whitehead from the Eastern Cape, Exceptional Bride by Mosima wa Molepo from Gauteng, Rescue by Catherine Stewart from Gauteng, and Baby Shoes by Dimala Wickstead from Mauritius.
Catherine Stewart is the director of the M-Net New Directions Season Six co-winner Clean Hands, which was written by Cape Town actress Shirley Johnston.
Mills said the themes of the entire list of 24 varied from journeys of the body and soul, corruption, empowerment and relationships. She further lamented the fact that many people want to write and yet they did not read, and that it was unfortunate the lack of access to movies showed in many of the stories.
Mills attributed the large number of entries to Under the Southern Skies to the number of newspapers which publicised the series, among them the Friday section of the Mail & Guardian.
Asked how Mamaland Productions hoped to raise production funding for 24 screenplays, she said there was no need to worry about that aspect of the process as yet.
“For now what’s important is to develop good scripts,” she added.