Local horror movie wins big

Arts Correspondent

South African horror film, The Domestic, was recently announced as the African winner at ScreamFest LA 2022.

Produced by Shaun Naidoo, directed by award-winning writer and director Brad Katzen and photographed by award-winning cinematographer Motheo Moeng, The Domestic tells the story of an upperclass couple who hire the daughter of their deceased housekeeper, only for things to take a macabre turn when she tries to destroy them.

Exploring themes of tradition versus modernity, African witchcraft and muthi, and the extreme class differences, The Domestic is a tense, disturbing descent into suburban horror.

Launched on Amazon Prime Video earlier this year, the film is a horrifying tale set in Johannesburg starring Thuli Thabethe, Amanda Du-Pont and Tumisho Masha.

The film has amassed 12 awards from national and international fes- tivals, including Best Horror at the Budapest Film Festival, Montreal Independent Film Festival and International World Film Awards.

Naidoo said the film was finalised between 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, under strict lockdown regulations.

“The cast and crew had to double efforts to ensure that the final product is of quality and exceeds international standards. Being awarded by industry peers at a prestigious event such as ScreamFest is every filmmaker’s dream. The Domestic has also been selected in nine other film festivals across the globe.

These include the Santiago Horror Film Festival, Something Wicked Film Festival and the Rome Prisma Film Awards,” Naidoo said.

The film also recently received the Dark Matter Jury Award for Horror at the Austin Film Festival in Texas.

“This confirms that with limited financial resources, an African film production company can produce a film that can win awards at international level,” Naidoo added.

Originally purchased by Nimrod Ndebele from Sekoto just before the artist left for Paris, France, in 1947, the three artworks have hung together on the living room walls of all Ndebele’s abodes, from Pietersburg, Sophiatown and Western Native Township to Charterston and Duduza, both satellite locations of the town of Nigel.

For at least 70 years they have been on private, home display, only once featuring in a major exhibition Song for Sekoto at the Wits Art Museum between 24 April and 2 June 2013. The collection has earned the family name The Inseparable Three.

In a letter in 2021 Professor Njabulo Ndebele, son of Nimrod Ndebele, describes the friendship between the teacher and playwright Ndebele, the teacher and artist Sekoto, teacher and artist Ernest Mancoba and the teacher Louis Makenna as an unlikely, marvellous convergence of talent. These four African men met in the 1930s when they were in their 20s and teaching at Khaiso secondary school in Polokwane.

Nimrod Ndebele details their intellectual camaraderie stating that while Sekoto painted and Mancoba sculpted, he wrote and produced plays, some of which Makenna, Sekoto and Mancoba performed in. He remembers in this regard that ‘we discovered our artists to be good actors in drama.’

Nimrod Ndebele expresses a debt of gratitude to Man-

He recalls Sekoto’s assertion that he allowed only three people to peep into his work as he was painting, Makenna, Nimrod Ndebele and Mancoba. He had confidence that these three looked with interest, not merely out of curiosity.

Nimrod Ndebele was born on 12 October 1913 in Senyotong, in the Leribe district of Lesotho. His father, Reverend Walter Ndebele had at the time been sent to Lesotho to do missionary work on behalf of the Christian Catholic Church of Zion.

Growing up in Sophiatown, he attended Saint Peter’s secondary school in Rosettenville and Amanzimtoti College, where he earned a teaching certificate and began teaching at Khaiso secondary school.

He went on to write the first published play in isiZulu which is now listed in number six on the Bantu

Treasury publication list of the University of the Witwatersrand. Both Mancoba and Sekoto won scholarships to develop their art in France, where they garnered international repute.

“Embedded in these three artworks is a wonderful sense of a historical moment and a special relationship among friends that was as emotionally mutual as it was supportive, professional, intellectual and artistic. They are a significant national asset,” Professor Ndebele says.