International “script doctor” Miguel Machalski will be
working this week with the Durban team behind award-winning feature film, Izulu Lami (My Secret Sky)
The aim is to develop the script of its follow-up film, Muti Dot Mobi.
Machalski is a Paris-based film script consultant who worked
on Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning Million
Dollar Baby and the Iranian Foreign Language Oscar-winner, A Separation, as well as Best British
Independent Film Award winner, Billy
Elliott. Machalski recently arrived in Durban to work on the script of the
latest film in development from longstanding Durban company Vuleka Productions,
with director Madoda Ncayiyana and producer Julie Frederikse, who are
co-writing the script.
Machalski’s script consultancy work is supported by the
eThekwini Municipality’s International Relations Office and Durban Film Office,
as well as Durban’s twin city of Nantes and the French city’s 3Continents Film
Festival. This co-operation between Durban and Nantes highlights the two
cities’ relationship around filmmaking. Frederikse and Ncayiyana developed
their first feature film at Produire au Sud (Producing with the South) of
Nantes, which is also supporting Machalski’s script work on Ncayiyana’s new
film. Machalski’s workshop will be held at the Durban premises of Alliance Française.
Ncayiyana’s debut film, Izulu
Lami, which premiered at the Durban International Film Festival, won six
international Best Feature Film awards: at the Cannes Pan-African International
Film Festival and the international film festivals of Verona, Italy; Kerala,
India; Tarifa, Spain and Zanzibar, and at the African Movie Academy Awards, as
well as 2nd Prize at the One World Media Awards, UK. Ncayiyana’s short film, The Sky in Her Eyes, is the only South
African film to win an official award at the Cannes Film Festival, the Djibril
Diop Mambety Prize for Best African Short Film.
It was during Vuleka’s unique casting process in 2007,
supported by the Durban Film Office and the INK Area Based Management
programme, that they discovered the child actors who starred in Izulu Lami and won Best Actor awards at
the African Movie Academy Awards, the South African Film and Television Awards
and the Tarifa African Film Festival. Tshepang Mohlomi and Sobahle Mkhabase
were 13 years and 10 years old respectively when the film was shot. Mohlomi
went on to win a second African Movie Academy Award for his role in Sara
Blecher’s Otelo Burning. He performs
at music concerts in KwaZulu Natal and will showcase his vocal talent in his
starring role in Muti Dot Mobi.
“The heart of Muti Dot
Mobi is the world of entertainment,” said director and co-writer Ncayiyana.
“Tshepang plays a wannabe performer with a groundbreaking style, featuring an
unusual mix of music, from African traditional and gospel to hip-hop and
beatboxing. I am confident that he will deliver the powerful acting and singing
performance required, as he is a rare young talent and is very serious about
his career.”
“This movie is about a kid with a dream who’s lured by a
conman with a plan,” said producer and co-writer Frederikse. “The tricks the
characters do on stage happens on cellphones and the internet, and Muti Dot Mobi showcases a new face of
urban Durban, whose residents may be poor but are also creative and
tech-savvy.” Vuleka Productions aims to promote its new proudly Durban film
through mobile and internet, as well as conventional media marketing.
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