a n e i l e g n A Angeliena, the bittersweet debut fiction feature film from multi-award winning South African filmmaker Uga Carlini, is to be released on Netflix globally on 8 October 2021. Set in modern-day, post-apartheid South Africa, it tells the story of a formerly homeless parking attendant, Angeliena, played by Euodia Samson. When she is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, she dares to make her lifelong dream of travelling the world a reality. Multi-award-winning filmmaker Uga Carlini specialises in female-driven stories, talks to BHM about how she made Angeliena...
How did the film come about - what was your inspiration behind the story and characters? A story gets a hold of me, resonates with me, and then I cannot let go until it’s done. I grew up with my mother, a single parent working in a local hospital, often taking her two daughters, my sister and me, into work during our school holidays. It’s there that we got a taste of the inner workings, trials and tribulations of the hospital and the people who worked there. The local car guard was the blueprint for Angeliena and then the colouring in could begin. That was 2011. The other source of inspiration was drawn from what we got RIGHT as the rainbow nation
after the triumphs of Nelson Mandela in 1994. I wanted us to meet Angeliena and to be reminded that her spirit lives in all of us. Angeliena is an unconventional heroine, what made you cast an older woman as the lead? Youth is not the only audience out there. I’m a late bloomer myself. My ‘youth’ was complicated and difficult: I want to go back to that person in her 20s and 30s and promise her it will get better. It did. Look at Andy MacDowell in full grey locks on the red carpet in Cannes, Halle Berry who found love in her fifties again, Mare of Easttown... I want a heroine that I for one can really identify with!
You’ve been a documentary filmmaker for most of your career. What made you decide to move into fiction? I’m a storyteller, a filmmaker and I chose the genre that I feel best suits the story, which gives it the most authenticity within my own personal style, which is magical realism. This is the case whether it’s documentary, fiction or music video. However, fiction is where I’m happiest and most at home. It’s just that my roadmap to it was simply via wonderful documentary pit stops.
‘I WANTED THE WORLD TO TASTE A SLICE OF OUR LIVES AND SEE HOW WE ARE ALL SOMEHOW CONNECTED IN OUR UNIVERSAL STRUGGLES, JOY OF LOVE, FRIENDSHIP AND HARDSHIP.’ What a coup to be released on Netflix globally. How did they get involved? Short answer. I asked them. Longer answer. Netflix came to visit us in South Africa. It’s what I dreamed of for Angeliena. I wanted the world to taste a slice of our lives and see how we are all somehow connected in our universal struggles, joy of love, friendship and hardship. The Netflix team are all about making real connections with the filmmakers and their stories. They read the script, however, they weren’t initially convinced. So I went
72 BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2021
