Sibongile Ndiweni, Sunday Life Reporter
THANDEKILE Ndlovu a 35-year-old man from Bulawayo has shown his love for film and television arts by starting a media club at Founders High School and is in the process of shooting a series with some of the talented pupils.
The series will be aired at the recently launched Keyona TV.
Ndlovu is working on a series in which he will include talented high school pupils as he cultivates their passion for media. At the moment, he is working with children from Founders High School and Emganwini Secondary School.
“I’m teaching professional script writing and digital media skills at Founders High School. We started it as a club like any other club in school, after noting its popularity, our aim is to turn it into a subject,” said Ndlovu.
He said in the planned series, although he would assist in writing the script, the pupils will be responsible for the acting and other production-related duties.
“What happened is that the production team at Keyona saw a series I had previously worked on, called Amaloja, which I shared on my YouTube channel, they then requested that I work on another production, which they will then air on the TV station.
“So the idea is we will rework the Amaloja concept but this time the lead will be taken by the pupils. We have two pupils from Founders who have mastered script writing, then we have a girl also from Founders and the other from Emganwini who will do the acting. What will be different from this Amaloja and my initial project will be that this one will focus on post-Covid-19 issues, like mental illness, unemployment and impacts of social media,” said Ndlovu.
In terms of his inspiration towards focusing on high school pupils, he said while he previously worked with university students from Lupane State University, Midlands State University and Creative College of Africa, he realised that there is a loophole where there was a need to prepare students from an early age.
Lupane State University
“I realised that such studies should not only be offered in universities and colleges but should also be a part of the secondary school curriculum such that when the children who are already interested in film get to the tertiary institutions they work on polishing up their talent.”
So far Ndlovu — who also is the director of Isilimela Film Production — has written 12 films that have received positive feedback from his audiences on YouTube and other social media platforms.
Midlands State University
He revealed that he began script writing at the age of 11.
“I always watched Amakhosi Productions on TV and it was always my dream to work at Amakhosi, but did not get the opportunity to do so. Then I happened to meet the late Khulu Cont Mhlanga who motivated me to grow my talent. My main inspiration came from Mhlanga, Thokozile Zulu the writer of Amakorokoza, Isithembo and other popular Amakhosi Productions that were aired on ZTV,” he said.