Another Paarlite is busy making big waves on the international movie scene.
Old Boishaaier Francois Immelman, together with Luntu Masiza, has just won Best Actor in the Dikalo Awards for their performances in Some Mothers’ Sons at the International Pan African Film Festival in Cannes, France.
This is a short film based on the work of Cape Town playwright Mike van Graan, which garnered many accolades as a stage play.
The movie was shot on a shoestring budget during the Covid-19 pandemic, at the Paarl Regional Court.
Immelman was roped in to play Braam Visser, a lead role, with Luntu playing the other lead, Visser’s counterpart Vusi Mataboge.
He has been acting since the age of 8, taking part then already in international eisteddfod competitions.
Immelman says he always knew he wanted to be an actor, and after matriculating from Boishaai in 2012 he studied acting at AFDA, three years later obtaining a degree in stage and screen performance.
Since then he has been cast in numerous advertisements and had small roles in TV shows, also playing a small part in the movie Angeliena.
But Immelman feels his big break came when his path crossed with Luntu’s, and they started working together on the stage version of Some Mothers’ Sons.
Their plans, however, were hampered by Covid. And instead, the short film was born.
Immelman describes the project as an intense and thought-provoking script, one he feels very privileged to have engaged with.
It concerns two individuals who have both experienced violence in an intensely personal manner – one as a detainee during apartheid and the other as a person living in a city now wracked by violent crime.
They are both essentially good men and their responses to the violence that they experience. It raises the question of whether a democratic South Africa has really come to mean the advancement and protection of human rights, particularly the right to life, and it highlights the challenges of the criminal and justice systems in the country.
Vusi is detained in the mid-’80s and is being brutally tortured. One day, a young Afrikaans lawyer, Braam, visits him and manages to get him out of detention. He convinces Vusi not to leave the country to take up arms in retaliation for what he’s experienced, but rather to become a lawyer and fight the system that way.
They become close friends and eventually colleagues in a top human-rights law firm before starting their own legal practice together.
Twenty years after meeting in the detention cell the roles are reversed. Braam is arrested and Vusi is there in the cell to get him out on bail.
Braam has been a victim of a terribly violent crime, and has responded in a brutal manner that has resulted in his arrest.
Immelman considers the short film a very important one, immensely intense and racked with numerous emotions that are relevant to both past and present South Africa, and it is a must see for all.
Apart from what he describes as an unexpected win in Cannes, the film has been very well received, with excellent reviews across the globe, and has received numerous award nominations..
“It has been a huge privilege to work on this production, with Luntu and the entire team.”
And at the relatively young age of 28 the road ahead may well be paved with stars for Immelman.
