(Mbali Zulu)
For this
year’s South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs), M-Net not only
received 115 nominations but one of its Magic in Motion (MiM) Academy graduates
also received her first SAFTA nomination.
Mbali
Zulu, who graduated from the Academy in 2016, has been nominated for Best
Achievement in Scriptwriting - TV Soap/Telenovela for Mzansi Magic’s flagship
soap Isibaya.
M-Net’s
MiM Academy, which is investing in the next generation of film and television
professionals, is where Zulu began her career after completing a three-year
Audiovisual Communication degree at the University of Johannesburg. She credits
her success to the M-Net initiative and Bomb Shelter Productions, a leading
South African film and TV production company, where she now works as a junior
story liner and scriptwriter.
Born in
the small town of Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal, Zulu knew early on that she wanted
to be a writer and she fondly remembers her university lecturers telling her to
never stop practising. ‘This industry is tough and far from glamorous, but it
is very rewarding. I am so honoured to be nominated for a SAFTA and I still
can’t believe it. M-Net and Bomb have paved the way for me to be a part of this
amazing industry and I will always be grateful’, says Zulu.
Further
success for the M-Net Magic in Motion Academy is that two interns from the
current programme concluding in March, Neo Sibiya and Thabo Mashaila, have
already landed jobs. Sibiya is working as a story liner and scriptwriter for
Penguin Films, which currently produces Mzansi Magic’s telenovela Ring of Lies, and Mashaila has started
work as the third assistant director on a new telenovela at Bomb Shelter Productions.
The
purpose of the Academy is to provide a platform for the country’s top film and
television graduates to launch their careers so we couldn’t be happier,
explains Yolisa Phahle, M-Net CEO. ‘The interest in our interns from the
industry has been incredible and we truly value our partnerships with the
production companies we work with.
Now in
its third year, the success of the Academy can also be seen in the quality of
the Mzansi Magic Original films produced by the interns each year. Zulu and her
class of 2015 were responsible for Forgotten
and #Lit which ranked within the top
10 shows for the channel in December of that year.
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