Local movie, Subways, hits screens
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Tuesday February 8, 2022 06:00
The movie is about two Moloi brothers, Bonno ‘Pablo’ Moloi palyed by Lesego Madingwane and Bonolo ‘Skills’ Moloi played by Bernard Morapedi whose parents died in a horrific car crash famed as the flyover disaster. After an uncle stole their inheritance, the pair had to find ways to fend for themselves and ended up finding themselves engulfed by the dark drug world.
In their quest to rule the drug world, they ended up stepping on the popular and vicious drug lord who made their lives a living hell. However, Pablo fell in love with a gangster young woman Queen Botho Garekwe who starred as Kandy. The two love birds finally decided to settle down after Kandy fell pregnant but lack of resources to fend they resorted to striking a deal with the drug lord ‘Tiger’ played by Motheo Madisa who had been terrorising them for a long time about the drug business. Unfortunately their plan led them to their demise. Tiger and his boys killed the brothers and Kandy at the same flyover their parents died at. Most of the language used in the movie is street lingo.
The setting of the movie is based in a township. It consists strong language and sex scenes therefore not ideal for children. It was written by Thabiso Ranthoyakgale and produced by Godson Tshipietsile. Speaking of his experience and preparation for shooting the movie, Madingwane who was the main character, said he was able to ace his role due to his endless passion, dedication and hard work. For her part, Garekwe who is evidently shy a person, said it was a long process for her to go through a certain scene. She said it took her a lot of guts to act some explicit sex scenes. She explained that she told herself she had to do it because locally, it was rare for actors and actresses to shoot explicit sex scenes because traditional displaying such acts was a taboo. “I knew that if I cannot do it nobody would.
I decided to put Queen aside and embody Kandy. Being unfamiliar with Tsotsitala, it was hard to learn in the short time we were given. I had to research and ask from others more especially the guys what many words meant. I didn’t even know how to hold a knife the way kasi gangsters do but I did and aced it,” she said. Tshipietsile also told the audience that they took seven days to shoot the movie even though the process to shoot it started in 2017. He explained they had to shoot it in a few days because they had to submit the production to their sponsors abroad.
He called on the government and local business community to invest in the film industry explaining that they had a lot of unproduced stories in the pipeline that they would like to share with the world.
For her part, BoFiNet PR, marketing and communications manager Dineo Rowland said having to see the actual faces of people watching the works of Batswana (Subways team) was refreshing as compared to watching the statistics on the platform. She thanked Isago Creatives team for outdoing their best and producing Subways. She said the movie premiered on the UPICtv Platform on December 27, 2021 and quickly attracted a lot of viewership.
“We were not surprised as the quality of the script writing, the camera work and the acting was very compelling.
I thank Subways team, for choosing UPICtv. This platform is a local streaming platform that has been continuously growing towards its mandate to empower and commercialise Botswana storytellers.”
“The platform is aimed at creating an avenue for local broadcasters to reach audiences across the region and the world at large. UPICtv has secured 91 local titles which accounts for 41% of the overall content on the platform 87% over the next 2 years,” she announced.