Year 2020 could easily go down as one of the best for local films after they scooped numerous international accolades.
After Mr Johnson scored two awards last month at the Global Nonviolent Film Festival, another local film has won a prestigious international statuette in the US. Advertising Barakat, an Afrikaans language Muslim feature film that highlights the life and culture on the notorious Cape Flats in Cape Town, won the Best Narrative Feature award at the 23rd Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival, which kicked off on October 24.
Reel Sisters is the first Academy qualifying film festival devoted to women of colour which will be screened virtually on November 17.
Film director Amy Jephta said about winning: “The Reel Sisters Festival celebrates the art of filmmaking by women of colour and offers a glimpse into the often missing, historical and psychological elements of womanhood, religion, government and societal development from a female perspective. Golden-voiced Nandi Madida reaching for the stars.
Nandi Madida is ready to become Hollywood’s next big thing after starring in Beyoncé’s Black is King. “We are delighted that Barakat has won this prestigious award as the film challenges the preconceived narratives around the Cape Flats and coloured communities, and shifts the focus away from violence and onto the celebration of life and culture, and the importance of family,” said Nandi.
She said Barakat is the story of a widow, Aisha Davids, who has to preserve the peace between her four sons who struggle to come to terms with their father’s death two years after the fact.
“Each son’s unprocessed pain manifests in how they are constantly fighting with each other, saddening their mother as she tries to move on with her own life. Although the film focuses on the Davids’ family drama, there are many laugh-out-loud moments in what is sure to be a gripping contemporary tale.” Barakat is scheduled for release in local cinemas in May 2021 and will be distributed by Indigenous Film Distribution.
