Private Project

I Think I Should Say Something

When a young woman’s hair appointment starts to take an unexpected turn, she has to summon the courage to speak up to her over confident hairdresser in the salon's bustling environment.

  • Mbali Mashaba
    Director
    Umlindelo
  • Mbali Mashaba
    Writer
  • Chale Darwin
    Producer
  • Dennis Ngango
    Producer
    Living on the Edge
  • Sthandiwe Kgoroge
    Producer
    Death of a Whistleblower, Shaka Ilembe
  • Botlhale Boikanyo
    Key Cast
  • Zukiswa Ngodwane
    Key Cast
  • Sthandiwe Kgoroge
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    20 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 1, 2025
  • Country of Origin:
    South Africa
  • Country of Filming:
    South Africa
  • Language:
    English, Tswana, Zulu
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Mbali Mashaba

Listed as Mail and Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans making a significant impact in the Film and Media category, Mbali Mashaba is a South African Creative Researcher, Film Director and Film Curator. She completed an Honours degree in Film and Television studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and a film residency at Gothenburg University. She is passionate about storytelling, nuanced representations of African diasporic life and shaping stories around the complex lives of black women. Her passion for visual storytelling led her to creating the curation and production company, Behind Her Lens Visuals, and the annual short film festival, Reel to Reality Film Festival, as a home for African independent films.

She has experience as a student and independent film director, which has accumulated international film festival selections across 3 short films. Her film, Umlindelo, won the Best Short Film Award at the Mashariki Film Festival in Rwanda in 2024 and her most recent film, I Think I Should Say Something, received Honorable mention at The Absurd Film Festival monthly awards in 2025, and is premiering at Africa Rising International Film Festival.

Mbali has worked as a Creative Researcher for some of the biggest Television Commercial pitches, alongside multiple local and international directors for Commercials and digital campaigns ranging from automobile, sports, retail, beauty, travel and more. Some notable Commercials include the Loerie Award Gold Film:Online Above 30s Volkswagen SA “LETS GO”, Loerie Finalists KFC "DANGEROUSLY DISTRACTING", CORONATION "HAPPY TEARS", which she served as a junior Director on.

As a film curator, she is devoted to amplifying African cinema through curation and under her curation and production company, Behind Her Lens Visuals. She was selected as a part of Scotland's Africa in Motion Emerging Curator Cohort in 2022, was a guest curator for The Independent Cinema Office (UK) Screening days: Young Audiences 2023 programme and was also selected as 1 of 8 film festival directors for Durban International Film Festival’s Film Festival residency in 2025.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I grew up in a loving, deeply religious Black household where respecting your elders was an unshakable principle, even when silence meant compromising yourself. As I matured, I realised how many young Black women carry this tension, especially in cultural spaces like the hair salon.

The salon is more than a beauty destination. It is a cultural institution, a place where identity is shaped, trends are born, and community stories unfold. Yet it is also a space where young women often grapple with the pressure to remain polite, grateful and agreeable, even when they are uncomfortable.

For many of us, there is a distinct rite of passage in navigating your first hair appointment, your first appointment alone, and especially the first moment you speak up for the look you truly want.

The film interrogates this relationship with autonomy from teenhood to adulthood through the perspective of a young black woman in a simple everyday encounter of getting her hair done through a coming of age comedy.