Add these exciting local titles to your collection of South African Films!
Kalushi – The Solomon Mhlanga Story – a human drama that will break your heart
South African filmmaker, Mandla Walter Dube, makes his feature directorial debut with this powerful true story about a nineteen-year-old hawker, Solomon Mahlangu from the streets of Mamelodi a ghetto township outside Pretoria in South Africa, who was brutally beaten by police and fled into exile following the 1976 Soweto uprisings to join the liberation movement. He returns from military training in Angola en route to their mission, his friend and comrade, Mondi, loses control and shoots two innocent people on Goch Street in Johannesburg. Mondi is severely beaten & tortured; Kalushi is forced to stand trial under the common purpose doctrine. The state seeks the highest punishment from the court, Death by Hanging. Kalushi has his back against the wall and uses the courtroom as a final battlefield. His sacrifice immortalizes him into a hero of the struggle and an international icon of June 16, 1976. Read more about Kalushi: The Solomon Mhlanga Story
Tess is a gritty no-holds-barred drama.
Tess is a hard-hitting journey into the heart of a young prostitute who sells her soul on the streets of Cape Town. Sassy twenty-year-old Tess (Christa Visser) sells her body on Cape Town’s streets. She survives by popping painkillers by the bunch and through her wry humour. But her life turns upside down when she falls pregnant. Though Tess tries to run, her past torments her. She begins to question her own sanity. Tess fights back, fighting her demons, searching for the truth. When she abandons her daily ritual of popping pills, awful pictures from her past ambush her mind. But Tess does not allow herself to collapse. Instead, she learns – perhaps because of the baby in her belly – to connect with the people around her. The Congolese refugee next door (Nse Ikpe-Etim0 treats her like a daughter. An impotent client shows her his heart. Tess finds sanctuary among strong women in a belly dance studio, and discovers she can dance up a storm. With new courage she tracks down her childhood friend, Dumi, who helps her to face the truth of her past. Read more about Tess