Notable screenwriter for Redi’s non-fiction

An award-winning work of non-fiction, ‘Endings and Beginnings’ revisits Tlhabi’s life as an 11-year-old youngster. Struggling to deal with the death of her father some two years earlier, she befriended a 20-year-old man called Mabegzo, who had a dubious reputation as a murderer, rapist, and gangster.

A “handsome, charming, and smooth” man, according to the book’s blurb, “he is a veritable ‘jack-roller’ of the neighbourhood”.

“Against her family’s wishes, she develops a strong connection to him,” it continues.

“Redi herself doesn’t understand why she is drawn to Mabegzo and why, at eleven, she feels a brokenness that only Mabegzo can fix.”

Speaking to The Times, Tlhabi said she initially decided not to intervene with the film adaption of her book, for which she won the 2013 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award, but producers Antony Altbeker and Ben Horowitz encouraged her to get involved.

“You should hear them talk about it,” she said.

“It’s like they’re born again. I didn’t want to interfere because I trust their judgment, but they dragged me into it.”

Altbeker and Horowitz have appointed renowned South African director Oliver Hermanus as screenwriter, and he might go on to also direct the film. Hermanus directed local film ‘Skoonheid’, the first Afrikaans film to ever be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, under the title ‘Beauty’.

“He is a very exciting talent and we think he’s made beautiful pieces of cinema- intelligent, provocative, thoughtful and beautiful, and that’s what we want from this film as well,” says Altbeker of Hermanus.

And of ‘Endings and Beginnings’, he added: “I thought it was such an amazing and well told story. Immediately you can feel its potential as a film and so much of it jumps off the page, as being something you would want in a film.”

When quizzed by the publication about who she’d choose to portray her in the film, Tlhabi chose actress Nthati Moshesh, known for being Lerato mashabelo in ‘Egoli: Place of Gold’, Dr. Thabile Nkabinde in ‘7de Laan’, and Thandeka Ngubeni in ‘Home Affairs’.

“She is bloody incredible,” she added. “She has depth and a lot of feeling.”

– TEAMtalk Media