THE MOVIES THAT MADE ME
SARAFINA!
IN THE 1980s the Market Theatre in Johannesburg was a real melting pot of culture and art. It was here, in 1987, that songwriter and playwright Mbongeni Ngema debuted his ground-breaking musical Sarafina!, which was directed for the stage by John Kani with the lead played by a then unknown 16-year-old actress named Leleti Khumalo.
The story was based on the revolt by students from Morris Isaacson Junior High, the site of student protests during the Soweto uprisings of 1976, and recounts the students’ efforts to create a play out of their tragic history. It follows the lives of the teenage Sarafina and her classmates on two fronts: surviving the madness and pain of their daily lives, and revelling in the rhythms and energy of the school musical they were creating.
It was a spellbinding story of freedom and I knew instinctively that this was a project that had to be done as a film. early on that no one but Leleti should play Sarafina and that Darrell Roodt would be brought in to direct. Darrell and I had made names for ourselves with several international award-winning films, including Place of Weeping and The Stick.
To retain the authenticity of the story, I firmly believed it was essential that it have a South African director, but it proved difficult to get our overseas
