Scary stories from her grandfather’s knee
|Published
Durban - The stories her grandfather told her as a child made writer and filmmaker Gcobisa Yako want to be a storyteller.
Growing up with her grandparents in the township of KwaZakhele in Port Elizabeth, she remembers on rainy days she and her cousins would all huddle inside as her grandfather, “a natural born storyteller”, held court.
Yako was this week announced as one of six winners, and the only South African, in a competition organised by Netflix and Unesco to find Sub-Saharan Africa’s up and coming filmmakers. Called African Folktales, Reimagined, the series aims to showcase Africa’s rich cultural heritage presenting short films in African languages.
Each winner receives $25 000 (R370 000) plus a production budget of $75 000 (R1.1m) to create short films through a local production company and under the guidance of a supervising producer and industry mentors from across the continent.
Yako’s film project, uma Mlambo, relates to one of those stories “my grandfather used to spook us with. He’d play up the witchcraft and the horror, but in a fun way,” she says.
She’s tight lipped about the content of the film: she has to be. But uma Mlambo, or mother of the river, in Xhosa myth is sometimes seen as a serpent, sometimes a mermaid, sometimes a powerful woman whose pleasure, or displeasure, could bring fortune or spell disaster.
“I grew up hearing multiple versions of the story,” she says. “Now I am reinterpreting the story in a more interesting and impactful way, taking this figure, this creature, from a well known folk tale and creating a different narrative around it.
“I was drawn to it because the central character being a woman struck a chord,” she says.
It was her need to document her grandfather’s stories that also pushed her towards filmmaking.
“He didn’t go to school, and could only speak Xhosa and Afrikaans, but he has lived through a lot, and knows a lot,” she says. “The things he speaks about are very affirmative. Back in the day when people couldn’t write, they told stories and they would change quite a lot from one telling to another.”
At first she didn’t consider herself a great writer. “That’s because in the academic space I didn’t tick all the right boxes in the way I was supposed to,” she says, so that led her to photography ‒ she’s still a keen photographer ‒ and video. “I thought I could use cameras to record these things.”
While doing her degree in psychology, Yako was involved in the thick of the Fees Must Fall Movement, and found herself behind the camera, filming to tell the students’ narrative. “It was a time when I started hanging out with the AFDA (film school) kids and realised that operating a camera or directing a story are things people can do, that you can make careers out of it.
“I thought I would not do my psychology honours. I will pay my own way if necessary ‒ I used to be a waitress ‒ but I had to get to Johannesburg and do an AFDA course, and I was accepted. It helped that I had already made a short film,” she says.
One of her first pitches at film school was for a project called Siyaya about a woman who inherits a position in the taxi industry after a powerful taxi boss is killed, and how she tries to change it. “It was accepted and now I had to write the script,” Yako says. “It’s when I learnt I actually can write.”
After pursuing a job in the “commercial space” in Cape Town, she returned to Johannesburg last year to work with the Rudeboys Collective as a film researcher.
She is determined to create films that “serve people”. “I want voices to be heard, for people to be affirmed. In that way we can learn about each other, and we’re not so alone, we have something to compare with. I want people to know that there are people who look like me, who dress like me. Representation matters.”
Other filmmakers chosen from thousands of applicants across Sub-Sahara Africa include Mohamed Eckouna from Mauritania, Walter Mzengi from Tanzania, Korede Azeez from Nigeria, Voline Ogutu from Kenya and Loukman Ali from Uganda.
For Ben Amadasun, Netflix Director of Content in Africa, the competition has been a “truly inspiring journey”.
“It’s evident that Africa is filled with amazing storytelling talent that is ready to share their different perspectives and celebrate Africa’s rich culture and heritage. Congratulations to the winners ‒ and to emerging filmmakers who didn’t make it ‒ we urge you to continue your passion of telling African stories. The world is ready to experience your talent.”
The completed films will premiere on Netflix towards the end of the year.
The Independent on Saturday