Malawi film ‘The Darkest Hour’ premiers Dec 24
Forget about Hollywood movies and Nollywood of Nigeria. It’s Malawi’s movie industry, Mollywood you may call it. Msonkhamanja Transformation Theatre will launch another DVD movie on 24 December, 2011.
Premier
The new movie is entitled ‘The Darkest Hour’. It is the second release after the youthful group released the famous movie ‘The Black Angel’ two years ago.
“Everything is now set and the movie will be launched at Kalikuti Hotel in Lilongwe followed by similar launches in Kasungu, Blantyre, Zomba and Mzuzu,” said the group’s actor and director Ignatius Kaphinde.
“We were supposed to launch it early November this Year at Kamuzu Institute for sports but due to other problems beyond our control we did not managed to do so,” said Kaphinde.
Potential
According to Kaphinde, Malawi has the potential to make good movies, citing other countries like Nigeria and Ghana improving their movie industry.
He called for support from cooperate world and that the government should invest in movie and film production, saying it would be an economic potential to create jobs.
“This time we have improved in many areas like costumes, story line, props, and location,” he said.
“Comparing to our previous movie (The Black Angel) our new movie is mature. We are geared to launch it on 24 December and we are urging our fans to come and support us,” added Kaphinde.
He further said that the movie has tackled many aspects of real life which includes Child labour and child trafficking, gender based violence and spiritual growth.
Nigerian film star Desmon Elliot said when he visited the country: “Malawi has potential of making it big in the movie industry, the country is rich with talent that only needs nurturing.”
Fact file
The group is under Msonkhamanja C.C.AP of the NKhoma synod.
Msonkhamanja Transformation Theatre has so far two movies in its pockets and has a membership of 25 actors, actresses and dancers, who are all members of Msonkhamanja CCAP.
Kaphinde says he was inspired by Nigerian movies and Malawi’s Ian Chisekula of the Rising Choreos to start film production
He however started acting while at Tsabango Community Day Secondary School in Lilongwe from 2003 and emerged as best actor three times in Association for Teaching English in Malawi (ATEM) drama festivals.
Mollywood
In the past Malawi has tried its luck in the movie industry. The first Malawian movie was ‘To Ndirande Mountain With Love‘ produced in 1985 and casting Malawi’s acting cream of the crop (including Du Chisiza, Junior, who gained the reputation of Malawi’s Shakespeare).
The second movie was ‘Prodigal Son‘ produced by the Bible Society of Malawi which depicted the biblical story of the prodigal son.
In the past five years the country has been struggling to produce movies but it has failed to achieve its goals as all the films have been substandard as compared to the first two.
Just recently a professionally produced movie ‘Seasons Of A Life‘ produced by Malawian movie maker, Shemu Joya, and his company, First Dawn Arts received award at Africa Movie Academy Awards. –-(Additional reporting by Green Muheya, Nyasa Times)
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