Avumile Qongqo as Khuselwa in The Last Ranger. Picture: Supplied
In her portrayal of a rhino anti-poaching ranger in a new short film, actress Avumile Qongqo said she has felt empowered by the story that tackles poaching.
“The film sparked a curiosity in me to enquire more on the various subjects it tackles with rhino poaching at the centre of them,” Qongqo told The Citizen.
In the short film The Last Ranger, Qongqo portrays the character of Khuselwa, who is the last remaining ranger who takes young Litha (played by Liyabona Mroqoza)under her wing and introduces her to the wonders of a game reserve.
The pair’s journey takes a dark turn when they are ambushed by poachers, leading to a battle to protect the rhinos and ultimately uncovering a devastating secret.
Qongqo said what became evident to her in the making of the film was that rhino poaching will continue to persist as long as socio-economic disparities are treated with a lacklustre approach.
“As a result, international syndicates often take advantage of the economic vulnerability of certain communities to recruit poachers, and it is not to say that people are absolved of responsibility but that there is an urgent need to come up with comprehensive and nuanced solutions to combat rhino poaching and avoid possible extinction of an animal we have the power to protect,” shard the thespian.
The actress said it gave her great pleasure to be a part of this ongoing conversation.
“To play Khuselwa, left me emboldened as a person, woman, and an actor.”
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The film also shines a spotlight on women rangers and dispels the misconception that the job is only meant for men. Qongqo said the fallacy about women not being rangers is fuelled by the fact that women were sidelined from occupations of that nature similar to film directing.
“Fast forward to recent years, we are seeing a great surge of competent female rangers in South Africa and the rest of the continent,” she said.
The Last Ranger is directed by Cindy Lee.
“It is also not often that narratives of this nature in film are championed by women, let alone black, as in the case of my character Khuselwa and to be afforded the opportunity to narrate this story in my native tongue, isiXhosa and that the director Cindy Lee is female, gave me more agency over the character and my interpretation of her.”
The film was shot in 2020 while Qongqo was processing a personal loss and grieving. The sense of loneliness she felt was her first point of connection with her character when she initially read the script.
“I then used this to access more of her which became the first building block of my(her) inner world. The challenge was remaining measured and not overburdening the story with excessive sadness, but now and then, to allow for the glimmer of joy and tenderness to come to the surface despite the undeniable presence of sadness.”
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In early November, the film was screened at the Isivivana Centre in Khayelitsha where Qongqo’s brother was in the audience.
“I brought an entire village and the most touching was when my brother exclaimed, ‘kathi kunje ecinema? [so this is what cinemas look like?]’, he had never been to the cinema,” she said.
It was rewarding for her to see the audience connect with the universal story.
“To observe the audience (majority from Khayelitsha) become immersed in the story and sensing the shift in the room once they felt connected to some characters and the story, was unimaginably rewarding.”
“It was wonderful to get the sense that they felt it was their film/story too, they felt seen more so because Thanda Choir, a local choir, gave a beautiful performance as the voices behind the score.”
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The Last Ranger has received multiple accolades, including Best Narrative Short Film at the Pan African Film Festival, San Diego International Film Festival, and Cordillera Film Festival, qualifying it for Oscar contention for Best Live Action Short Film at the 2025 Academy Awards.
Qongqo said the film’s universal appeal is because of its many layers — one of them being the human condition.
She makes reference to a scene in the film where young character Litha’s father contends with as he contemplates the actions he would later carry out.
“While the immediate thing to do might be to judge him, if one is to honestly enquire of themselves, we will not run short of instances where we have made compromising decisions to satisfy our immediate needs,” she said.
She added that throughout the film the audience is confronted with the theme of coexisting contrasting realities that the characters are constantly called to face and perhaps accept a call familiar to humankind at large.
The Last Ranger has also won Best Screenplay and Best Actress for both Mroqoza and Qongqo, and garnered several other awards at noted festivals such as Cleveland International Film Festival, Indy Shorts, American Conservation Film Festival, Pretoria Film Festival, cementing its status as a compelling piece of cinema that speaks to universal themes of environmental justice and women’s empowerment.
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