CINEMA THURSDAY TO SCREEN “IKHAYA MALAWI”

Screening and discussion of Olmega Mthiyane’s film to be held at KZNSA on June 4.

Presented by the Durban Youth in Film Society, a screening and discussion of Olmega Mthiyane’s Ikhaya Malawi will take place on June 4 at 18h00 sharp as part of the KZNSA Gallery’s Cinema Thursdays programme.

The theme for the second Durban Short Film Challenge will also be announced and there will be a 20-minute speed matching session to help those who have ideas but not enough contacts to make their films. If you would like to participate but don’t have a clue about camera work or editing etc. then please attend and you will get a chance to meet people who could help make your five-minute film happen.

Deep within the filmmaker’s family is an unresolved conflict. A conflict she is determined to both expose and resolve. It stems from her migrant grandfather, Owen One Kamanga, who walked from Malawi to South Africa, leaving behind his first family to begin a new life in Chesterville with a second. But her uncle has thrown away his letters, and the only way to uncover the problem is to unite the two families. Accompanied by her mother, she travels north along the road that her grandfather resolutely trudged. On their arrival in Chintenche, they discover an endearing community whose stories transform their understanding of their father and grandfather. In the end, their physical and emotional search leads them to a place of joy and acceptance, and the feeling of returning home.

Omelga Mthiyane studied Video Technology at Technikon Natal. As a researcher and production assistant for Angel Films, she became interested in documentaries. She moved to Cape Town where she worked at Sithengi Film and Television Market and in 2001 was selected for the Close Encounters Documentary Laboratory where she was trained in making documentaries.

Ikhaya, her first film, was produced for the SABC Project 10 series and has screened at film festivals internationally. In 2004, as a follow up, she made Ikhaya: Malawi which screened on Encounters 2005. She was a participant on the Encounters Black on White Lab 2004 where she workshopped and completed Different Pigment. Omelga is currently working as an insert director on Plexus TV’s Headwrap, a documentary reality series for SABC.

More information from the KZNSA Gallery in Bulwer Road on 031 277 1705, email: gallery@kznsagallery.co.za or visit www.kznsagallery.co.za