South Africa's 'Five Tiger' Selected for 2021 Sundance Film Festival

South African short film Five Tiger has been announced as one of the films to be screened at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. According to IceKream, Five Tiger produced by TMPC, Nostalgia Productions and Revolver Amsterdam, will reportedly be playing at the Sundance Film Festival between 28 January to 3 February. Five Tiger was directed and written by Nomawonga Khumalowhohas caught the attention of international audiences.

Read: Lesotho Secures Debut in Oscar Race with 'This is Not a Burial, It's A Resurrection'

The short film focuses on a religious woman forced into a transactional relationship to take care of her family. The stellar cast includes Ayanda Seoka, Fumani Shilubani, Khalalelo Makhanda and Menzi Biyela. In an interview with News24, Khumalo revealed that Five Tiger's narrative is inspired by Black women she met on the side of the road while working on a South African telenovela. The chance encounter with the women who were forced into prostitution inspired the feminist interrogation of society. The complexity of gender-based violence, gender discrimination, religion, sex work, politics and a mother's love are powerfully portrayed in the short film.

Khumalo is reportedly elated that the theme of the short film resonated with an institution as prestigious as Sundance. A Black woman herself who has ten years in South Africa's competitive film industry, her works include 2015 international film Chappie. In 2019, her film script for The Bursary which looks at the practice of virginity testing to attain a scholarship in South Africa, won the best "South African Film Project and Most Promising Narrative" at the Durban Film Mart. The Bursary is set to go into production next year.

Five Tiger was also selected to screen at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia at the end of last year.

Watch the trailer for Five Tiger below:

Five Tiger [2020] Teaseryoutu.be