Mzansi Life & Style showcases the best that South Africa has to offer in terms of entertainment, fashion, lifestyle, culture, cuisine, travel, beauty and celebrity news. Subscribe to my website by adding your email address in the "follow" button below.
Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever roared into cinemas across the continent this past weekend (11-13 November, including previews) and, in doing so, lit up the box office. Across all territories, the follow up to Ryan Coogler’s 2018 hit Black Panther proved a draw for cinema-going audiences with just under 300k attendances being reported.
In West Africa, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever became the biggest industry opening weekend of all time with a box office tally of ₦240m. In East Africa the film earned Kes 25m, earning the titles of both the biggest opening weekend box office of 2022 and the biggest post-pandemic opening to date. In Southern Africa, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever brought in R16.5m respectively, becoming the biggest opening weekend box office of 2022.
2018’s Black Panther remains the number 1 film of all time in both East and West Africa, and the number 2 film of all time in Southern Africa.
With just a few weeks to go before the prestigious Joburg Film Festival takes place in Sandton, the JFF Youth and Audience Development programme continues in the Ekurhuleni and Tshwane regions this month.
Following the successful programmes in Sedibeng and the Westrand last month, the next series of workshops has now been announced with the Ekurhuleni edition set to take place at the Rhoo Hlatswayo Art Centre on 19-20 November, followed by the Tshwane programme confirmed to take place on the 26-27 November at the Women’s Living Heritage Museum.
Developed to prioritise growth and upskilling of young upcoming local filmmakers in underdeveloped areas within the province, the JFF Youth and Audience Development programme is an integral pillar of the festival. For the past few years, this event has provided life changing experiences for emerging film talent, with over 200 aspiring local young creatives / filmmakers attending the programme thus far.
Launching on 18 May, Disney+ subscribers will have access to Star Wars’ “The Book of Boba Fett” and both seasons of “The Mandalorian”. In addition, Disney+ will be the home of the entire Skywalker saga, with Star Wars Episodes 1 through 9 streaming on the service.
Confirmed from launch, superhero fans will have access to over 60 Marvel films including Academy Award®-nominated “Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings”, “Eternals”, “Avengers: Endgame” and “Captain Marvel,” and over 80 Marvel series including “Moon Knight”, “Loki” and “WandaVision.”
Subscribers will also be able to enjoy over 100 titles from Disney and Pixar, including the entire “Toy Story” franchise, “Soul” and Academy Award®-nominated “Luca”, and from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Academy Award®-winning “Encanto” which tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, and Academy Award®-winning “Cruella” starring Emma Stone as the legendary “Cruella de Vil”.
National Geographic documentaries including “The Rescue” and “Free Solo”, from Academy Award®-winning directors and producers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, will sit alongside popular National Geographic series such as “The World According To Jeff Goldblum” and “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted”.
In general entertainment, subscribers will also be able to watch titles including the hit original comedy series “Only Murders in the Building,” limited series “Pam and Tommy,” “The Kardashians,” “Queens,” and mystery thriller “Death on the Nile” directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, as well as “The Simpsons” and back seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy,” “9-1-1” and “Black-ish.”
With unprecedented access to Disney’s vault, beloved classics such as “Cinderella,” “Tangled”, “The Princess and the Frog,” and “The Little Mermaid,” will be available to stream alongside recent blockbusters like “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “Mulan (2020)”. There will also be hundreds of Disney Channel series, shorts, and specials available to stream, including “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir” and “Phineas and Ferb”.
Fans can currently register their interest to take advantage of an exclusive introductory offer to subscribe to Disney+ in South Africa for the price of R950. This pre-launch offer for the annual subscription is only available until mid-night 17 May and is equivalent to 12 months for the price of 8. Standard pricing at launch is confirmed at R119 per month, or R1190 for an annual subscription.
Users will have access to features like high-quality viewing, up to four concurrent streams, 4k video quality for select titles and the ability to set up to seven different profiles, including the ability for parents to create pin-protected profiles, ensuring kids access age-appropriate content.
I was super excited to learn that Disney+, the streaming service from The Walt Disney Company, has confirmed launch dates for the 42 countries and 11 new territories set to launch this winter.
The streaming service will launch in South Africa on 18 May 2022. South African pricing has also been announced at R119.00 per month, or R1 190.00 for an annual subscription.
With exclusive original content and thousands of episodes and movies from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and general entertainment from Star, Disney+ is the streaming home for some of the world’s most beloved stories.
Subscribers will have access to Star Wars’ “The Book of Boba Fett” and “The Mandalorian” from Executive Producer and Writer Jon Favreau. In addition, the Marvel Studios’ series “Moon Knight” starring Oscar Isaac as Steven Grant, which sees a mild-mannered gift-shop employee becoming plagued with blackouts and memories of another life as well as Academy Award®-nominated “Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings” starring Simu Liu and Awkwafina, will also be available at launch.
Subscribers will also be able to enjoy Disney and Pixar’s Academy Award®-nominated “Luca”, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Academy Award®-winning “Encanto”, which tells the tale of an extraordinary family called the Madrigals and Academy Award®-winning “Cruella” starring Emma Stone as the legendary “Cruella de Vil”.
In general entertainment, subscribers will also be able to watch titles including “The Simpsons”, “Queens” and “The Kardashians”. From National Geographic, fans will have access to both seasons of “The World According To Jeff Goldblum” that sees Jeff take us on an entertaining, insightful and playful ride. In each episode of these 12-part series, he pulls on the thread of a deceptively familiar object to unravel a world of astonishing connections and fascinating science and history.
Disney+ offers access to high-quality viewing up to four concurrent streams, unlimited downloads on up to ten devices, and the ability to set up to seven different profiles, including the ability for parents to set Kids Profiles that have an easy-to-navigate, child-friendly interface to access age-appropriate content.
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the first South African Muslim film shot in Afrikaans, (actually AfriKaaps) Barakat, has been selected as South Africa’s official submission for the 94th Annual Academy Awards.
Directed by Amy Jephta and produced by Ephraim Gordon, co-founders of production companies PaperJet Films and Nagvlug Films, Barakat was released in cinemas in early 2021. The screenplay is by writing-producing team Amy Jephta and Ephraim Gordon who made their debut at South Africa’s 2017 kykNET Silwerskerm Festival with their short film Soldaat (Soldier), for which they won Best Screenplay and Best Short.
Barakat Official Trailer
Jephta, a celebrated theatre practitioner, director and writer, also scripted South Africa’s official 2018 Golden Globes submission for Foreign Film, Ellen: The Story of Ellen Pakkies. In 2019, she was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award for theatre. Actor and director Gordon starred in Nosipho Dumisa’s critically acclaimed 2018 debut, Number 37, which premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW).
“I am so proud that this film has reached as many people as it has, and to be recognised by South Africa in this way is incredibly special,” said director Amy Jephta. “Even after an extremely challenging year for our film industry, we’re honoured that a small story about a family has connected us.”
Producer Ephraim Gordon added: “This was totally unexpected, but it shows that everyone’s hard work on this project has paid off. This film was a blessing from the beginning and continues to be. It is our barakat.”
‘Barakat’ is an Arabic word denoting blessings, abundance and prosperity. The film follows the trials and tribulations of Aisha Davids (played by veteran acress Vinette Ebrahim), a widow who has to preserve the peace between four sons struggling to come to terms with the death of their father two years after the fact. Her sons, Zunaid (Joey Rasdien), Zaid (Mortimer Williams), Yaseen (Keeno Lee Hector) and Nur (Danny Ross) return to their family home to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr (or Labarang, as it’s called in Cape Town), the celebration marking the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan. They’ve never dealt with their father’s death or the void his passing has left. Each son’s unprocessed pain manifests in constant familial conflict, saddening their mother as she tries to move on with her own life.
The 94th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, the 27th March 2022.
Barakat was developed in partnership with MNET and funded in association with the NFVF, the DTIC, IDC as well as Indigenous Film Distribution, the South African distributor of the film.
Mzansi Life & Style by Mishkah Roman-Cassiem 