Filmmakers
Kenneth Nkosi
“Kenny is a natural born clown with a gift for explosive physical comedy, but unlike other local comedians he roots his comedy in the truth of South Africa’s still uneasy race relations in a manner that is both hilarious and biting,” said Barry Ronge, writing in the Sunday Times.
Kenneth got his first taste of acting in 1986 as part of a community theatre group. He realised the need to perfect his craft, and in 1993 he enrolled at the Market Theatre Laboratory as a student in dramatic arts. He made his debut in 1995 with his former teacher Robert Coleman in a com
edy called Afrodizzia at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre. In that same year he met up with Annie Barnes who specialise in children’s theatre at the Civic Theatre. The union was a spectacular success that went on for almost three years.
Once he’d conquered the theatre world, Kenneth ventured into television. His first role was in the South African soapie Isidingo. Soon after he landed a part in Saints, Sinners and Settlers, written by Zakes Mda and directed by John Matshikiza. His face also became familiar as he was on the The
Toasty Show in the mornings on e-tv.
Kenneth appeared in Fela’s TV, and Tsotsi (winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film), Jerusalema, Surprise, and the international sci-fi hit District 9. He created the role of Elvis (for which he won a SAMA best actor award) and co-wrote and produced White Wedding.
Rapulana Seiphemo
Rapulana Seiphemo is one of South Africa’s best know actors. In 1989 he completed his diploma in Acting and Playwriting at the Federated Union of Black Arts Academy in Johannesburg. He then went on to complete a BA in Theatre at the Arts College Station Texas A & M Univers
ity in the US.
His theatre career started in 1987 with Apartheid in the Court of History at the FUBA Academy. Other performances include the acclaimed My Children My Africa in 1992 and The Blacks which opened at the Stockholm Stad Theatre in 2001. Rapulana has directed a number of plays, includ
ing Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act by Athol Fugard and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.
Probably best known for his lead role in the TV soap Generations, Rapulana has appeared in South African TV in Muvango, Isidingo, Deafening Silence and in Silent Witness for the BBC.
He played the lead in the recent box office hit and critically acclaimed Jerusalema for which he won the best actor award at the Durban International Film festival. Other features include Themba by Stefanie Sycholt, Hijack Stories by Oliver Schmidt, the Oscar winning Tsotsi by Gavin Hood, Dead End by Donovan Marsh and Les Blair. He created the role of Tumi and co-produced and directed the comedy hit White Wedding.
Jann Turner
Born in France in 1964 Jann was raised in the Cape and educated in Britain and America. An alumnus of NYU’s Graduate Film School she has directed multi-cam soap and single cam drama as well as co-created two successful drama series and has written numerous television scripts. She is the author of the novels HEARTLAND (Orion, Lubbe), SOUTHERN CROSS (Orion, Lubbe) and HOME IS WHERE YOU FIND IT (MML). She has been published in the Virginia Literary Quarterly as well as numerous newspapers including the UK’s Guardian and Sunday Independent and South Africa’s Business Day, Mail & Guardian, Marie Claire, O, Femina and Real Simple magazines.
Turner has also made award-winning documentaries and worked for two years as part of the team of producers who made the TRUTH COMMISSION SPECIAL REPORT.
She was a co-creator of the SABC1 series MZANSI, which won the Audience Choice Award for Best TV Programme in 2006 and she is also a co-creator of the SABC3 drama series HARD COPY, which won the SAFTA Award for Best TV drama in 2007. Her feature film directorial debut - WHITE WEDDING – was the South African entry for nomination in the Best Foreign Picture category at the 2010 Academy Awards. WHITE WEDDING was also nominated for 7 SAFTA Awards, including Best Picture, Best Directing and Best Writing.
WHITE WEDDING released in Landmark cinemas in the US in the late summer of 2010. Jann’s second feature film – PARADISE STOP – opens in South Africa in March 2011. She is currently developing a third feature, FIFTY COFFINS, through her company Stepping Stone Pictures.
She lives in Johannesburg.
Ken Follett
Read the full biography
Ken Follett is one of the world’s best loved novelists. He has sold more than 100 million books. His latest, World Without End, went straight to No.1 position on the bestseller lists in the USA, Spain, Italy and Germany.
He first hit the bestseller lists in 1978 with Eye of the Needle, a taut, original thriller with a memorable woman character in the central role. The book won the Edgar award and became an outstanding film starring Kate Nelligan and Donald Sutherland.
He surprised readers by radically changing course with The Pillars of the Earth, a novel about building a cathedral in the Middle Ages. Published in September 1989 to rave reviews, it was voted the third greatest book ever written by 250 000 viewers of German television ZDF in 2004, beaten only by The Lord of the Rings and The Bible. A similar poll conducted by the BBC placed it 33rd in a list of the one hundred greatest novels. In November 2007 it became most popular ever choice of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, returning to No.1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Follett was born on 5 June 1949 in Cardiff, Wales the son of a tax inspector. He is married to Barbara Follett, the Member of Parliament for Stevenage in Hertfordshire. An enthusiastic amateur musician, he plays bass guitar in a band called Damn Right I Got the Blues and appears occasionally with the folk group Clog Iron playing bass balalaika.
Kevin Fleicher
Kevin’s career has mixed creative and financial, not always in the same proportions. Since winning the South African English Literature Olympiad in 1980, he spent the next 20 years focused on business. He has a BA (Economics) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and a Masters in Management from Oxford. He worked in Corporate Finance in New York and London, before returning to South Africa in 1993. Since then he has been involved in media, telecommunications, IT, fine arts and venture capital. During the same period, he helped manage two TV production companies (Newsforce and what is now ‘Bomb’), co-produced an Emmy-nominated film in the USA (Silent Tears, 2002), was consulting producer for the reality series ‘10111’ (SABC 1996) and for ‘Jacob’s Cross’ (MNet 2007). He is theConsigliere on ‘White Wedding’ (Stepping Stone 2009), ‘Paradise Stop’ (Stepping Stone 2011), and Executive Producer of ‘Otelo Burning’ (Cinga Productions 2011). White Wedding was the South African entry to the Foreign Language category of the Academy Awards for 2010. He also advises the Independent Producers’ Organisation and government on policy in the film and TV industry in South Africa.
Plot Synopsis
This is the story of two friends who live their lives on opposite sides of the law. Potso will only drive if the light is green. Ben (Kenneth Nkosi), on the other hand, will go when it suits him.
In any one month thousands of cargo-carrying 16-wheeler trucks move freight north, bound out of South Africa to Zimbabwe and further into the heart of the continent. Near the freeway that links Johannesburg with the country’s northern border, outside a sleepy town in Limpopo province, is Ben Khumalo’s truck stop Paradise Stop, complete with bar, restaurant, and ladies of the night. Ben maintains that he is a legitimate businessman and his establishment is as sharp and clean as one of his suits. However, round the back and under the table there are all kind of shady deals taking place at this meeting point. Paradise Stop is well known as a hangout for shysters and criminals. Ben is a hustler and he wouldn’t let a little thing like the law get in the way of his own needs or those of his customers.
Ben has a happy marriage and a thriving family. His wife, Goodness (Charmaine Kwenyane), knows that he has a shady past in Johannesburg. She was there, and that was in fact where she met him. But Goodness believes that Ben has cleaned up his act. She would kill him if she knew that he was involved in any dodgy dealings today.
Ben’s friend Potso (Rapulana Seiphemo) is a good cop in a rotten system. He has dedicated his life to upholding the law and to catching the bad guys, but so far the bad guys have always eluded him.
Potso is struggling to keep his crumbling marriage from falling apart altogether, whilst fighting a losing battle against crime and corruption at work.
The delicate balance of things is upset when the General (Vusi Kunene), Ben’s boss from his murky Johannesburg past, shows up in town. The series of heists that ensues pits former friends, Ben and Potso, against one another and put everything in the two men’s lives at stake. Both men are faced with a choice between right and wrong, but when the General threatens Goodness and the children, Ben and Potso have to join forces to protect what really matters to them.
The film is peopled with a cast of eccentric characters who find themselves washed up in this remote town – an arrogant mayor, a spirited small-time gangster’s lackey, an easily beguiled desk sergeant, a simple minded swimming pool maintenance man, and a feisty, sexy security investigator who all become embroiled in a madcap comedy-thriller of errors.
Paradise Stop, like White Wedding, is a captivating film with a great sense of humour. It offers an acute but affectionate look into the vibrant ups and downs of life in present day South Africa.
Cast
Ebenezer (Ben) - Kenneth Nkosi
Potso - Rapulana Seiphemo
The General - Vusi Kunene
Diesel - Bonginkosi Thwala
Goodness - Charmaine Kwenyane
Moshidi - Sonia Sedibe
Zandi - Maduhva Madima
Viras - Rea Rangaka
Tumi - Matshepo Maleme
Johnny - Nick Boraine
The Mayor - Lucky Legodi
Commander Matlaku - Keketso Semoko
Ma Putting - Mary Twala
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