Project Detail

Hijack Stories

Synopsis

A high-octane action thriller set in the post-apartheid South African ghetto.

Through themes of racial identification and reflections on Hollywood-style violence, Hijack Stories mixes social commentary and humour while looking at the most painful and violent aspects of South African society.

Sox Moraka (Tony Kgoroge) is a talented actor and part of the rising black middle class in Johannesburg. He fled poverty in Soweto to become a well-known television personality for South Africa's new "Rainbow Nation". Sox acts and lives the part, dating his blond co-star and living in a penthouse flat in the white suburbs. While hosting music video shows, the ambitious thespian dreams of becoming an action hero - the African Wesley Snipes. The possibility of landing a role as popular TV gangster Bra Biza sends Sox back to the ghetto to rediscover his roots. Bumbling along in an unfamiliar, violent world, he meets the street-wise Grace, who introduces him to notorious gangster and old school friend Zama Zama or the General as he is endearingly tagged by his posse. The posse consists of Fly, the kamikaze getaway driver, and Joe, a disillusioned activist whose prophetic asides about South Africa's current state provide a constant morality check. They decide that Sox is truly in need of 're-education' and so begins his crash course in the seductive, yet deadly, finer points of gangster life. One terrifying night, Sox learns that gangster life isn't all game play and, as a result, each of the characters' lives will change forever.

Details

Year: 2001
Type of project: Features
Format: 35mm Kodak
Director: Oliver Schmitz
Producer: Christoph Meyer-Wiel, Philippe Guez, Nadine Marsh-Edwards (Co-Producer)
Editor: Oliver Schmitz, Derek Trigg
Screenwriter: Oliver Schmitz
Director of Photography: Michele Amathieu
Sound: Richard Sprawkins
Composer: Martin Todsharow
Principal cast: Tony Kgoroge, Rapulana Seiphemo, Moshidi Morsheswa

Genre

Black Drama

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Xenos Pictures

Contact: Nadine Marsh-Edwards
16-24 Brewery Road
London N7 9NH
UK

T 020 7607 1600

Nadine.Marsh-Edwards@ukgateway.net

Schlemmer Films

Contact: Christoph Meyer Wiel

Septieme Productions

Contact: Philippe Guez

Sales Company

Momentum Pictures

Contact: Alex Hamilton
184-192 Drummond Street
2nd Floor, London NW1 3HP
UK

T 020 7391 6900

alex.hamilton@momentumpictures.co.uk

Visit Website

www.momentumpictures.co.uk

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