A highly anticipated South African short film B(l)ind The Sacrifice, directed by award-winning multi-hyphenate Nakhane, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival last week.
The film brings together three award-winning filmmakers: Nakhane and Cait Pansegrouw and Elias Ribeiro of Urucu Media.(Pictured here top: Elias Ribeiro, Nakhane and Cait Pansegrouw at Locarno.)
South African Nakhane is a celebrated musician, actor and novelist, globally renowned for their captivating performance in Inxeba (The Wound), which was South Africa's submission for the Oscars in 2018, who now takes on a new role as both writer and director; Cait Pansegrouw and Elias Ribeiro are seasoned producers internationally known for their many award-winning films such as Inxeba, Train of Salt and Sugar, This Is Not A Burial, It's A Resurrection, Necktie Youth, and many others.
This creative partnership has now produced B(l)ind The Sacrifice, which is a timely exploration of masculinity, patriarchy, and power, set against the backdrop of an immutable yet contemporary world.
“The story was sparked by the notion of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, and primarily how Isaac must have felt being offer to God as a sacrifice by his father,” explains Nakhane.
“The film looks at masculinity/patriarchy - and the power it wields - gone mad. I had to imagine the Biblical Abraham, the initial patriarch, as a ‘real’ person and in so doing I was forced to wonder what would happen if he didn’t get away with what he did. Imaging that his power, so mad, that he has convinced his family and his three servants to live their lives as nomads with no choice but to obey him. And so I ask - what would happen if we nipped all of this patriarchal lineage by killing him?”
The filmmakers are looking to develop this short film into a full feature, where Nakhane will have room to explore not only patriarchy and the power it wields in the world but also its contact with queerness, both covert and overt.
“It’s always a joy to sit in the dark and experience your film with an audience for the first time.” says Pansegrouw, “Over six hundred people were in the cinema at the premiere and they responded beautifully to our film. It’s given us even more motivation to expand this story into a feature film”.
B(l)ind The Sacrifice was one of twenty short films, selected from four thousand submissions, to compete in the prestigious Pardi di Domani section at the Locarno Film Festival, known for showcasing innovative works from emerging filmmakers, where they are able to create expressive experimentation and innovative works that speak to cinema of the future might take. B(l)ind The Sacrifice will be part of the Concorso Internazionale competition, featuring short and medium-length films as world or international premieres, highlighting the visionary talent of new filmmakers from around the globe.
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