Private Project

Umlindelo / The Vigil

Umlindelo is centered around two sisters, mourning the loss of their father, who navigate the difference in the memories they have of him.

  • Mbali Mashaba
    Director
  • Itumeleng Molefe
    Writer
  • Karabo Maisela
    Writer
  • Lilitha Alunge Makhawula
    Producer
  • Joshua De Koker
    Producer
  • Zikhona Bali
    Key Cast
    "Thandokazi"
  • Lungelo Madondo
    Key Cast
    "Ntombikayise"
  • Themba Dlamini
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 31, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    South Africa
  • Country of Filming:
    South Africa
  • Language:
    Zulu
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Mbali Mashaba

Mbali Mashaba is a South African creative researcher, filmmaker and film curator. She completed an Honours degree in Film and Television studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and a film residency at Gothenburg University in Sweden. She is passionate about storytelling, nuanced representations of black life and shaping stories around the complex lives of women. As a filmmaker, she has experience as a film director and producer, with 6 short films under her belt, which have accumulated international film festival selections.

Her passion for storytelling led her to creating Behind Her Lens Visuals, a film curation agency, that provides accessible African diasporic stories to audiences, in order to bridge the gap between industry professionals, emerging storytellers and audiences through curated film screenings and their annual film festival, Reel to Reality Festival which she founded in 2021.

She was selected as a part of Africa in Motion's Emerging Curator Co-hort in 2022 and guest curated The Independent Cinema office (UK) Screening Days: Young Audiences programme in 2023. She has worked with Durban International Film Festival as a pre-screener, in addition to co-curated events with Africa Rising International Film Festival.

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Director Statement

Umlindelo is a look into how we grieve in the black community. The story dives into collective grief and how it's traditionally handled and how that can be in conflict with an individual's own path to grief. At its core, grief is a mirror, displaying all that we once were, did and meant to the deceased.

Mourning the deceased is a worldwide practice. Even though mourning differs culturally and ethnically, there are similarities in the way Africans, and more specifically black South Africans mourn the dead. Typically, mourning is facilitated religiously and culturally in different contexts, and usually, it involves the fundamentals of certain beliefs, customs, traditional, spiritual practices and an expectation of certain conduct that is known to symbolize mourning. In an African context, gendered roles around mourning are extended beyond immediate spouses to the heteronormative family. These duties often remain patriarchal and regulate the dress, behaviour and even routines of the women in the family. This story is born out of my own experiences with grief and the complicated ways in which collective grief as a cultural practice can be in opposition to individual and internal grief. Umlindelo evokes notions around the relationship between memory, grief, informed by the differences in our experiences with the deceased. Through the two sisters, we embark on a journey of debunking these roles and each of their approaches to grieving their father in ways that reminds us that our experiences of people can differ based on hetero-patriarchal family structures and people's own experiences with themselves.