BACK OF THE MOON
“Eve is kind of a character that was based on Miriam Makeba on the eve that she leaves for London. So you have this great talent that you know is being driven out of this country and then Badman, played by Richard Lukunku, is an intellectual, he should have been a leader in the community and in order to hold his head up high, he has become a gangster. So both of these pretty fabulous characters are lost to South Africa. That is something that I find sad.” ~ Director August Wilson
Oscar-nominated South African director, Angus Gibson, takes us back to the glitz and menace of Sophiatown in his stylish new film, Back Of The Moon. Starring Richard Lukunku and Moneoa Moshesh.
28 July 1958. Badman, an intellectual and the leader of the most powerful gang in Sophiatown, lives life on his own terms in this crazy, cosmopolitan, half demolished ghetto on the edge of Johannesburg. The gorgeous Eve Msomi, a torch-singer on the brink of an international career, is giving her last concert in the local hall before she travels to London. Tomorrow, legions of Apartheid police will force the residents of Gerty street out of their homes and they will be trucked to a desolate township, ten miles out of the city.
Refusing to face the bleak reality of black South African life, Badman has decided that he will fight to the death for his home. But fate, thrusts Eve Msomi, whom he has loved from a distance, into his orbit. And on this night that bears this beautiful encounter, Badman’s gang, The Vipers, sensing his vulnerability, turns on them both.
Directed by Angus Gibson, South Africa, 2019, 95min, Drama, Zulu w/English subtitles
