(Kwande
Nkosi)
The
Tokoloshe, directed by Jerome Pikwane and starting
Petronella Tshuma (Rhythm City, Scandal!), opens at cinemas countrywide on
November 2, 2018.
The chilling film has generated much
interest at fantasy and horror festivals around the world. It had its European
premiere at Frightfest in London, the UK’s largest international horror film
festival. Known as the ‘dark heart of film’, the festival showcases the best
and most exciting horror from around the globe.
Frightfest reviewer Kat Hughes said, “It’s
a slow-building supernatural story that teases the scares as the film unfolds.
It’s not a jump-scare fest like a lot of Hollywood movies, it’s much more
sophisticated and intellectual … It perfectly conveys that fear of the dark
that you felt as a child, and works as a brilliant homage to A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
On Projected Figures, a site dedicated to
horror and fantasy films, Anton Bitel wrote, “The Tokoloshe turns local
legend into allegory of state (and mental state), showing a South Africa full
of the marginalised, the overlooked and the forgotten … the tokoloshe, both
metaphorical malaise and eventually literal, reified beast, continues prodding
at open wounds yet to be cauterised, and stealing away the innocence of
childhood itself. Canny viewers will not be surprised by the film’s subtly
telegraphed twist, but Pikwane wisely reveals it in an understated fashion,
leaving viewers to reconcile the spectres that they have seen with the
underlying, horrific events that they must in part imagine.”
The South African film, an imaginative
depiction of a myth about a terrifying predator, tells the story of Busi
(Tshuma), a young woman who is desperate for money and takes a cleaning job at
a rundown hospital. There she befriends a young girl, Gracie (Kwande Nkosi),
who believes she is being terrorised by a supernatural being called the
Tokoloshe, a diminutive, malevolent spirit with sexual desires who can cause
illness or even death. When children start being taken, Busi is forced to ask
if the Tokoloshe is indeed responsible.
Helen Kuun, MD of Indigenous Film
Distribution, says the response around the world has been amazing. “The film
continues to travel to festivals round the world and the feedback and reviews
are wonderfully positive. This is one of the most exciting genre films of the
moment, and we are really looking forward to the opening, which is timed to
coincide with Halloween.”
The
Tokoloshe, which has already seen several
international sales, was funded by the National Film and Video Foundation
(NFVF) and M-Net Movies and will be released by Indigenous Film Distribution.
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