South African youngster is heading for Hollywood
AWARD-winning local movie Izulu Lami (My Secret Sky) opens here on Friday after wowing international audiences. The movie’s 12-year-old lead, Sobahle Mkhabase, bagged the best-actress award at Spain’s Tarifa film festival, where the film was voted best production in May. The Grade 6 pupil from Mayfair, in Durban, who plays the character Thembi, said the film’s success was “overwhelming”. “I never thought that I would get so many phone calls, interviews and attention ever in my life. Though I cried so much ... because I had to have my hair cut like it had been eaten like rats [but] it was all worth it. I am slowly starting to like the fame,” she laughed. The film, made almost entirely in Zulu, was shot earlier this year on a budget of R4.5-million. It features a number of young children with no professional acting skills who were discovered in KwaZulu-Natal’s townships and informal settlements. Director Madoda Ncayiyana, known for his 2002 Cannes-award- winning short film The Sky in Her...