Horror movie Every Day Is Halloween’s creators have announced that the movie, which debuted on Sunday, 31 October, is actually a campaign to raise awareness about gender-based violence.
Every Day Is Halloween, starring actress, author and women’s rights activist Ayanda Borotho as the lead, premiered on DStv’s Box Office.
The movie follows the lead character and her daughter as they try to get away from a dangerous perpetrator.
Speaking about the movie and the campaign, Ayanda shared the similarities her character and women in Mzansi have.
“Our country is filled with horror stories of women being killed every day. The violence is experienced both in public and private spaces. The character I portray is barricaded in her home, looking out of a window with a sense of danger lurking outside her door,” said Ayanda.
“Women can’t escape the violence they face in this country daily, no matter how hard they try. We are trapped in our homes with abusers and killers known to us and the community.
Outside the home, we are harassed and hunted. We are separated from our children and families because we are running from physical and emotional danger,” said the actress.
“According to the South African Police Services Annual Crime Statistics Presentation, April 2019 – March 2020, approximately 2 695 women are murdered in a year, and every three hours a woman is killed. These are not titles for a blockbuster horror movie – they are GBV statistics in South Africa,” they said in a statement.
The executive head: marketing at MultiChoice South Africa, Thabisa Mkhwanazi, said even though horror films are fiction, they wanted to do things differently and show the reality of most women in South Africa.
“Although Halloween movies are based on fictional violence, in South Africa the violence perpetrated against women is sadly not fictional. This campaign relays that the danger, fear, and violence that is synonymous with the horror movie genre, is experienced every day by women in our country,” she said.
The campaign not only highlights the shocking GBV stats but is also asking the public to participate in the fight against GBV by donating on the DStv BoxOffice platform.
All proceeds go to the Uyinene Mrwetyana Foundation launched in honour of 19-year-old university student, Uyinene Mrwetyana, who was brutally raped and murdered in 2019 at the Clareinch Post Office where she had gone to collect a parcel.
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