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Hip-hop star Maglera Doe Boy (Tokelo Moyakhe) hosted media and other guests at the screening of his new feature film Mzansi, derived from the Nguni name of his home country, South Africa.
Co-written by himself and Brian O'Haze (Brian Nkosi), who holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from the New York Film Academy, the short film takes a pan-Africanist position on how it unpacks a young man’s life across South Africa and Mozambique.
Plotted around young love and how its purity can sometimes get tainted by drug activity, the script explores friendship, trust and how the lives of young Africans across the continent intersect.
What I loved about the film
During my pre-screening research, I discovered that Maglera worked with Don Dada and immediately got excited at the prospect of the internationally celebrated reggae star I’ve written about co-starring in the film. However, I later learnt that this was the Soweto-born fashion entrepreneur Tshepo Pitso, who is celebrated in his own right for the strides he has made with the izikhothane / Material Culture street-fashion movement.
Maglera also features fellow musicians Sir Trill, Young Stunna and rapper and producer 25K in the film. These collaborations made more sense when I saw the film because Italians are known for their dapper fashion, and the film interweaves this with premium fashion brand MaXhosa and South African street fashion. And when you experience the lyricism and production in both the tracks Ntariana and Izinja 2.0—derived from the TKZee Family hit Izinja Zam—you get to see Maglera’s vision coming alive right before your eyes.
I love how the story traces the drug infiltration of South African townships. Some of the things happening in the country currently suggest that our people are either unaware or are deliberately ignoring how this cancer was introduced to young people of colour during the apartheid regime to subdue them. The script meticulously links this to police corruption in the 1980s, and this impresses me because contemporary South Africans would like to believe that this is a brand-new phenomenon. We need to engage with history more.
I also love the graphics of the film’s logo. They are fragmented and feature what appears to be barbed wire and a condom. The wire, for me, speaks to the criminality that has plagued our country long before the dawn of democracy, and the condom speaks to the sexual recklessness that our youth insists on relishing despite living in a digital era where information about sexual health is readily accessible on their smart devices.
Where the film fell short
I studied drama and practised as an actor on stage before my first love, journalism, located me. My informed observation is that if the musical lyrics were brilliant, the script was majestically poetic and immaculately written. It therefore saddened me that this borderline-perfect piece of art was compromised in the manner that it was, especially when these things could have been avoided. While I understand the concept of “everybody around me goin’ eat,” I want to discourage artists from inviting their friends and allies to every project because Mzansi is an uncanny demonstration of how the craft was compromised.
The acting left much to be desired, with Young Stunna being the only “thespian” who was half-believable. One need not be a drama graduate to connect the dots that the cast were not actors by any stretch. Why was Don Thug twitching his facial muscles like that? It made him look like he was trying way too hard to bring the emotion forth.
When the credits rolled, I didn’t even want to see the name of the make-up artist because why would they do that to this brilliant story?
I won’t even get into the details here; when you see the film, you will see it too. The audio was out of sync in some scenes, and this should have been rectified before the screening. There’s something we do as South Africans—and perhaps as humans—which I also noticed with Mandla N’s Losing Lerato 2.
When it’s our fave, we shy away from honest critique and opt to hide behind applause and fluffy reviews. I reckon we “hate” these faves because when you love someone, you wish them growth. Celebrating mediocrity has never given birth to growth.
Who was spotted
There were quite a few prominent faces in the crowd. Screenwriter Thembalethu Mfebe came up to a colleague I was chatting to and launched into a full-blown conversation with them without so much as greeting or acknowledging me. I get reprimanded a lot for being too lazy to greet, and this occurrence made me understand why it comes across as rude.
Filmmaker extraordinaire Mmabatho Montsho was also among us, and she mostly just observed and kept to herself. I just want to pre-confess that one day I will write a completely biased article about award-winning musician Langa Mavuso. I have observed Langa showing up for other artists and supporting their ventures on multiple occasions, and I absolutely love this about him.
Also present were Duma Collective founder Sibu Mabena, Lerato Sengadi, Big Brother Mzansi finalist Trixie and radio veteran Thomas Msengana.
Overall, it is a brilliant story told through poetic excellence, and it just needed the right people behind it to help Maglera’s vision become the masterpiece it deserves to be.
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