Themba The Movie | 2010 Soccer Film

Soul star lives her dream – Review on WeekendPost

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2010/07/26
Barbara Hollands EAST LONDON CORRESPONDENT hollandsb@avusa.co.za

GROWING up in rural Transkei, Simphiwe Dana dreamed of becoming an international singing sensation and racking up standing ovations from appreciative audiences.

Not only has she realised this dream, with audiences in Europe and China lapping up her distinctive brand of soulful jazz, but Dana has just released her third album and made her acting debut in Themba – A Boy Called Hope, which opened in movie theatres countrywide last week.

In an exclusive interview with Weekend Post, she said her earliest memories include listening to her mother singing to her and her three younger siblings in their Lusikisiki rondavel.

“My mother is a Christian and she would lead us in song at morning and evening prayers,” said Dana.

“She had the most amazing voice and we would sit and listen. A song on my latest album is dedicated to her.”

While some of her childhood was spent in Transkei’s urban centres like Butterworth and Mthatha, where she matriculated from Vela High School, much of Dana’s early years were spent taking in stray animals from the hilly countryside and heaping them with TLC.

“My mother was a nurse and I would use her bandages to care for their wounds,” smiled Dana. “So my mother’s dream for me was that I become a vet, but I always knew I wanted to be a singer.”

However, when the golden-voiced beauty left school, where she was a self-confessed “brainiac”, she studied IT at the former Port Elizabeth Technikon, a course she completed in Johannesburg before taking up a job in graphic design.

“There was an IT boom at the time (the late 1990s) and I heard there was easy money in it,” explained Dana. “My mother is a single parent and I planned to help her financially while following my dream.”

Participating in open mic poetry and singing sessions in Johannesburg “for the love of it”, Dana soon got noticed and sang in local television drama Yizo Yizo before performing for Nelson Mandela at his 83rd birthday at Baragwanath Hospital.

But her real break came in 2004 when she was signed up by Gallo Records and released her first album, Zandisile, which won her two Sama awards for best jazz vocal album and best newcomer.

“My music is a fusion of different elements, not just jazz. It can’t be boxed, but I call it soul music because it makes you feel emotion,” said Dana, who can be found at her Cape Town home with her two young children when not jetting around the world or participating in music events.

Even though her self-penned compositions are in Xhosa, Dana performs more in countries like Britain, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Germany and China than locally.

“I don’t think (overseas audiences) would like me if I sang in English. I think they respond to the emotion in my voice and my very good band.”

Being a global hit means being away from her children and this is hard for the singer, who likes nothing more than to spend her free time playing with them.

“The social scene is not really my thing – we only go out dancing about once a month,” she says.

Being cast in Themba, much of which was shot on location in Port St Johns, near her childhood stomping ground, was “emotionally draining” but enjoyable work for Dana, who plays the role of HIV-positive Mandisa.

“I took my four-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter to the Cape Town premiere and he got upset because I had to look sick in the film, but my daughter got it and was proud of me,” said Dana, describing filming in Port St Johns as “paradise”.

“It is so beautiful there and the wild fruit that grow there reminded me of picking guavas, bananas and avocados as a child and selling them to buy sweets.”

Read the article here.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 26th, 2010

Themba – Premiere Photographs

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Check out some photographs from the Themba premier here.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 23rd, 2010

Themba – Winner at Zanzibar International Film Festival

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At a dazzling Awards Night on 17th July 2010, the winning films for the Zanzibar International Film Festival were announced. Themba The Movie scooped up two awards!

ZIFF AWARDS (Zanzibar International Film Festival)
Golden Dhow – Best Feature Film – THEMBA by Stefanie Sycholt (South Africa)

UNICEF AWARD
Winner – THEMBA by Stefanie Sycholt (South Africa)

For the full list of winners click here.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 19th, 2010

Themba on Tonight

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Filmmaker tempers hard realism with hope
July 16, 2010

By Diane de Beer

“Making a film is very hard work,” says German-based South African director Stefanie Sycholt. “If I’m going to spend all that time and energy, I want to tell a story that’s important.”

She’s also driven by a quote that says: “Europe loves to see Africa die and not to see them live.” “I need to change that,” she says. For her Themba had all the ingredients but most importantly, while it dealt with Aids, it also brought hope.

“Everyone in South Africa probably knows someone who has died of Aids, they know what happens and the horror of death. I didn’t want to tell that story,” she says. Instead she wanted to explore a clutch of different issues that would touch people around the world, especially in South Africa.

Themba was adapted from a book by Lutz van Dijk, who started and worked in an Aids clinic with children – the reason why his stories were so authentic.
That was another quality that was important to Sycholt, who spent some time there to gain first-hand experience of exactly what happened in the heads of patients and how they acted and reacted in certain circumstances.

She had been looking for a way to tell the Aids story but was determined to tell a story of hope – yet a realistic one. When she was approached with this particular tale, she knew she had struck gold as it had all the elements that appealed to her.
There were certain things she wanted to describe. She wanted to create role models, including people who would own up to having Aids or HIV. She wanted to show that it wasn’t a shameful disease and that, with treatment, one could live a productive life. She wanted to show different kinds of families and the way they stuck together and survived. But most of all, she wanted to show hope.

She was passionate about working with actors, especially children, who hadn’t acted before. She got all that. She also loved the fact that there was a link with soccer, a sport that offered hope to young children, especially those from tough backgrounds.

Read the rest of the review here.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 16th, 2010

Themba Review by Barry Ronge

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Times Live

Jul 11, 2010 12:00 AM | By Barry Ronge

Themba is one of the most impressively made and honestly expressed South African films we have seen for a long time.

Stefanie Sycholt, a South African now living in Germany, has made the kind of film we have long needed to see, about poverty at grass roots – where many children must survive. HIV/Aids is also a major factor and the ignorance and shame surrounding the illness adds to the problem.

Before you stop reading and say “Ag! No. Not another Aids pity-party”, let me say that this film is different. It’s superbly shot on the Eastern Cape coast; it has a wonderful music score and, not since Tsotsi, have we seen such an honest account of households headed by children in the most dire conditions in squatter camps.

The young actor who plays Themba, Nat Singo, is a major find. Not only does he have a face that lights up the screen, he’s a competent actor who handles the big scenes with grace and humanity.

There’s a subplot showing how Themba and a friend find a route out of their dire situation via sport, especially soccer.

I suppose the soccer theme was used to chime with the World Cup, but the film is about much more than the sport. It’s about the resilience and courage of South Africa’s youth and it’s an enjoyable and inspiring film.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 13th, 2010

Out In Africa Review

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A young man’s dream to play for Bafana Bafana, a friendship that grows from strength to strength, a family bond which saves a mother’s life, the reality on HIV/AIDS and TB stigma. A family’s journey from the Eastern Cape to Cape Town in search of greener pastures and in search of each other. A story that celebrates ups, downs and victories of life.

This entirely South African produced film is what I perceive has been lacking on our silver screens. It has been a long time since the film circuit has been presented with a deep meaningful story, which evokes emotion, challenges existence, and expresses the evolution of culture, still instilling real hope in our hearts.

The story of young Themba manages to touch multiple aspects of a young boy’s transition from boyhood to manhood, and from a dreamer to an achiever. Themba who lives with his mother and sister in a rural Eastern Cape village is hopeful that his estranged father will one day return from the mines of Gauteng. His hardworking mother, Mandisa loses her job in a tea plantation and is compelled to move to Cape Town, leaving young Themba and his younger sister under the hoped care of Luthando, Mandisa’s lodger and momentary lover. Themba focuses on taking care of his sister best as he can and working on becoming the soccer star that he has dreams of being. He has love, support and encouragement from his best friend Sipho. The two boys are each other’s pillars.

The emotionally nutritious film is well shot, with the Eastern Cape’s Port St John’s beauty stunningly pictured the dirt and grunge of Cape Town townships un-romanticised. To compliment the tell-as-is motion picture, is a soundtrack that amplifies every beat of the story and journey.

The novel based story has an amazing message that resonates in Themba’s journey, a universal truth that will move anyone irrespective of their background and a heart wrenching reality that plants a seed of hope in the hearts of all who’ll see it.

The movie stars songstress Simphiwe Dana as Mandisa, Luthando being played by Patrick Mofokeng and Themba played by Nat Singo. For more on the movie visit www.thembathemovie.com. The PG13 movie opens on the 16th of July in cinemas nationwide.

In my book it is a must see and it shows how South Africa has stories to tell, and how hopeful we are in light of where we come from.

Till next time, take care and be good!

Read the review here.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 12th, 2010

Review on NewsTime

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A brand new Movie that captures South Africa’s spirit at the moment is coming to cinemas nationwide from the 16 July 2010.

The film tells the story of a young boy from the Eastern Cape whose love for soccer brings him through the challenges in his young life: the dysfunctional family life, his protection of his little sister, which results in him being raped by his mother’s lover, their travels to and search for his mother in Cape Town, HIV /Aids, his eventual selection for the junior Bafana Bafana team, the Amajitas, and his public acknowledgement of his own HIV status and survival.

Themba means hope in IsiZulu and this film is testament to the beautiful game of football and the South African spirit, where many successful players begin their lives and careers in dusty, poverty stricken townships and end up on the playing fields of some of the biggest clubs in the world.

Talent

Themba is played by Nat Singo (Beat the Drum, Wooden Camera), his younger self is played by newcomer Emmanuel Soqinase. Celebrated singing star Simphiwe Dana makes her film acting debut as Mandisa, Themba’s mother.

Patrick Mofokeng fresh from leading roles in Master Harold and the Boys and Clint Eastwood’s Invictus takes on his most testing role to date as the lodger Luthando, Rapulana Seiphemo star of Jerusalema and White Wedding plays Vuyo, Themba’s father and Kagiso Motsei who played the lead in Malunde is Sipho, Themba’s friend. There are also cameo roles played by International soccer star the German and Arsenal goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann and our own Kaiser Chiefs star Doctor Khumalo.

Beautifully set and shot in Port St John in the Eastern Cape and Masiphumelele township, south of Cape Town, the film is directed by Stefanie Sycholt (Malunde) who also adapted the screenplay from Lutz van Dijk’s book Crossing the Line.

The film is a collaboration by Zeitsprung Entertainment, Rheingold Films and DO Productions and is produced by Michael Souvignier, Ica Souvignier, Josef Steinberger, Brigid Olën, Marlow de Mardt and Stefanie Sycholt.

Awards

THEMBA – A BOY CALLED HOPE was a multiple award winner at the 21st International Filmfest Emden- Norderley which took place in Germany from 2- 6 June 2010.
At the sold out gala event, THEMBA walked away with first place for the Bernhard Wicki Prize. One of 14 films in competition, THEMBA won against films from all over Europe in this audience award.

THEMBA also scored top honours by winning the prestigious DGB award which goes to the film that best portrays social issues. Read the rest here.

Running time is 105 minutes and the film has been given a rating of PG13

Read more | Comments (1) | July 9th, 2010