SOWETO BLAZE

Soweto Blaze is a light-hearted stoner-action-comedy with a strong South African flavour and a healthy dose of romance, humour and spectacle. It is a unique take on a familiar story involving a down-on-his luck, small-time weed dealer named MO, yearning to do something better with his life, but lacking the faculties to do so. When his two bumbling friends decide to kidnap the daughter of a ruthless gangster in Soweto, Mo gets swept up in the frenzy of it all and soon finds himself forced to rise to the challenge of taking control of the situation, before they all end up dead!

With this story, I wanted to showcase aspirational characters that are eager to better themselves and improve their life situation. It doesn’t shy away from the harsh reality of South African life, but rather embraces it, giving us a fun, tongue-in-cheek glimpse into a group of quirky characters doing whatever they can to get by in the urban jungle of Jozi. One of my goals in making Soweto Blaze was to infuse the film with a youthful energy and optimism that reinforces positive themes of self-improvement, friendship and love. It is something I believe all audiences can embrace, especially as a pleasant distraction from some of the more sombre world events happening around us. That is why in our world, everything is dialled up to 11 – the characters are larger than life, the situations they find themselves in even more so, all pushing to the motivation of telling this story as boldly as possible, through a uniquely meta-textual lens inspired by films such as Friday, Snatch, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, and Pineapple Express, to name a few. The film will have a hyper-real, stylised visual language. I wanted to showcase Soweto in a way modern audiences haven’t seen before, emphasising the urban-chic aesthetic of Soweto. From the anachronistic, retro-modern fashions to the crazy-beautiful graffiti artwalls peppered across the city, these elements helped bring to life the world of our story and our characters. It is a love-letter to Soweto, bright and bursting with life. My aim with this story was to showcase a light-hearted, fun, quirky side of South Africa that audiences locally and abroad might not be familiar with, where we empathise with characters that want to better their situation and succeed, despite facing failure at every turn. This is a story with strong, core values and a positive, life-affirming message that says as loudly as possible: with the right mind-set, the right goals, and the right people supporting you, you can achieve anything you set your mind to. And in getting this film made, we proved exactly that.