Best of the 2010s: South Africa’s breakthrough film & TV decade

The 2010s saw African films make even more headlines at the world’s biggest festivals, from AFI to Berlin, Sundance to Toronto, earning Oscar and Golden Globe nominations along the way. As we prepare to enter the 2020s, here’s our list of four global breakthroughs to stream during your holiday.

Breakthrough animation: Revolting Rhymes (2016)

“I guess you think you know this story. You don’t. The real one’s much more gory.”

Roald Dahl’s classic of subversive fairy tales was brought to life in Cape Town by Triggerfish, who animated Revolting Rhymes for Magic Light Pictures alongside Magic Light’s Berlin office.

Like Dahl did, the animation has reimagined the familiar stories anew, structuring them around the friendship of the pistol-packing Red Riding Hood (BAFTA winner Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones and The Good Fight) and her resourceful best friend Snow White (Screen Actors Guild nominee Gemma Chan from Crazy Rich Asians and Captain Marvel). The Big Bad Wolf (Golden Globe nominee Dominic West from The Affair and The Wire), seven jockeys with gambling debts, and three property-developing pigs all feature, as does Cinderella’s fairy godmother, Jack and a beanstalk, and his nasty mother.

Directed by Jakob Schuh (Oscar-nominated for The Gruffalo) and Jan Lachauer (Oscar-nominated for Room on the Broom) and co-directed by Bin Han To, Revolting Rhymes was nominated for an Oscar and won some of the world’s biggest animation awards, including the International Emmy Kids Award for Animation; Best Animation at the BAFTA Children’s Awards; Best Animated Special at the Annie Awards; and Best One-Off Special at Kidscreen.

Stream Revolting Rhymes here.

Special mentions:

• Triggerfish also animated three adaptations of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler classics as BBC Christmas Specials with Magic Light. All similarly won multiple international awards, with Stick Man (2015) winning at Annecy and Kidscreen, The Highway Rat (2017) at Rose d’Or, and Zog (2018) at New York International Children’s Film Festival – and currently nominated for Annie, Kidscreen and International Emmy awards in 2020.
• Triggerfish’s movies Adventures in Zambezia (2012) and Khumba (2013) became the most successful South African film exports in 30 years, translated into 27 languages, licensed in over 150 countries, and generating over R1 billion.
• Munki and Trunk (2016), produced from Cape Town by Sunrise, became a YouTube phenomenon, racking up over two million subscribers.

Breakthrough film: Inxeba – The Wound (2017)

Directed by John Trengove, Inxeba tells the story of Xolani (Nakhane), a lonely factory worker, who joins the men of his community in the mountains of the Eastern Cape to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood. When a defiant initiate from the city discovers his best-kept secret, Xolani’s entire existence begins to unravel.

Inxeba is one of the most talked-about South African movies of the last decade. Local cinemas were forced to cancel screenings after death threats and protests about its depiction of the secret Xhosa initiation ritual, then the Film and Publications Board Tribunal reclassified it as pornography (it’s not) after complaints from traditionalists, essentially banning it from mainstream cinemas. The classification was later overturned in the North Gauteng High Court. 

I-D Magazine called it “the most important LGBT film you will see in 2018… through the character of Xolani we are introduced to a world where homosexuality is still simply not an option.” The excessive protests against the film laid bare the rampant homophobia that remains in parts of South Africa.

In addition to a 90% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Inxeba was Oscar-shortlisted and won over 25 international awards, including the Sutherland Award for best first feature at the London Film Festival, the Grand Jury Award at LA Outfest, and Best Actor for Nakhane at Palm Springs. 

Stream Inxeba here.

Special mentions

• Kanarie, Schalk Bezuidenhout’s breakout movie, was named one of Indiewire’s 14 Best LGBTQ International Films of 2018 and has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Breakthrough TV: Is’thunzi (2016)

Mzansi Magic’s first teen drama follows Winnie, Londi, Noxolo and Thishiwe as they pursue their dreams and form a bond that will not only push them over the edge, but also grow them in ways they never could have imagined.

As Winnie, Thuso Mbedu earned unprecedented back-to-back Best Actress nominations at the International Emmy Awards in 2017 and 2018. This helped land her a lead role in The Underground Railroad, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, directed by Oscar winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk).

Stream Is’thunzi here.

Special mentions

• 1Magic’s thrill-a-minute The River (2018) was nominated as Best Telenovela at the International Emmy Awards in 2019.
• Mzansi Magic’s supernatural drama The Herd (2018) won the Jury’s Special Prize at Seoul International Drama Awards in 2019.
• Ramy (2019), about a first-generation Egyptian-American who feels like an outsider in both New Jersey and Egypt, won the Audience Award at SXSW in 2019.