Tish Malaba turns novel into film

ENGLAND-BASED Zimbabwean artist and author Titshabona Malaba Ncube has embarked on a project to turn his novel, titled The Igazi Labafo published in 2013, into a film that will feature Zimbabwean and South African actors.

Speaking to NewsDay Life & Style, Ncube said the project, a crime thriller acted in Nguni dialects, was divided into two phases with phase one shot locally while the other would be completed in South Africa.

"The first phase of shooting is on-going. The storyline moves between Zimbabwe and South Africa, hence phase one is the Zimbabwean side while the second phase for South Africa is likely to take place as early as June," he said.

"Maybe The Igazi Labafo will be the first Ndebele language novel to be featured in film and people should expect an interesting movie.

"Our fans should expect a skilfully made, well-acted, cohesive and internally consistent story that will elicit their emotions and set moods."

Ncube said the characters, which are partaking in the film were from both Zimbabwe (Bulawayo) and South Africa.

"The instructions were that let's get more untapped talent from Bulawayo and then expose them to the world. We then recruited production managers like William Mindoro, Memory Kumbota and Trevor Ncube to do the job of talent spotting and the results so far are amazing and young Bulawayo talent is surreal," he said.

Ncube said despite many challenges, he would work hard in order to complete the project he has been dreaming of for years.

"This was a dream that was actually beginning to fade away, but I remembered that when I was coaching football as a school teacher I used to tell the boys that you never score unless you try.

"I, therefore, decided to apply the same principle and practise what I preached," he said.

Ncube is mainly known for his involvement in music when he formed a group called Sinazo and has produced hits such as Kalanga child, Amina and Mandiziba.