Centre’s influence reaches screens
The cast and crew consist of locals with no prior experience.
KAMHLUSHWA – The Phaphama Youth Centre is shooting a movie to be titled Mpumelelo – meaning success. The siSwati movie, written and directed by the centre’s project manager, Lucky Maseko, is a unique take on South African stories that aim to educate people from all walks of life.
The cast and crew consist of locals with no prior experience.
The actors had internal and external training in stage performance, screen play and script reading by Zweli Mdakane and Johannes Msomi. “I’m happy to be part of the movie and happy with the training we got,” said Thabiso Zulu (13), one of the main characters in Mpumelelo. With the training The technical crew and also mastered some of the things that we had already done,” added Lucky Maseko.
Forty of the characters were on camp during the school holidays to efficiently maximise production under the supervision of Thembi Ngqani, the script director.
“So far it’s been good. The production is continuing; we shoot from 08:00 to 15:00 and from 10:00 to 00:00 even though there are challenges,” said photography director Shadrack Mabunda.
