Sebonta hits right cords at Capitol

49270,Mompati Tlhankane,php2FDF.tmp.jpg, | Sunday May 8, 2016 00:00

Set in a school environment, the film took off right at a time teenagers come of age.

The audience was directed straight into the junior secondary school environment and was introduced to a leader of school bullies called Sebonta. The atmosphere turned violent as Sebonta and his partners in crime beat up a petite boy while the entire school watched.

The name Sebonta was a perfect fit to the character and the actor, Tebo Magopane, who was able to portray his character’s masculinity and aggression through the use of force, threat and dominance towards his peers.

At first, one would have thought Sebonta waxes a typical school bully story, but the game changes when a new openly gay boy called Karabo (Thabiso Segokgo) arrives.  

The way Sebonta reacts and stares at Karabo reveals a side of him never seen before.  The gym session whereby the boys have their shirts off also reveals Sebonta’s bottled up feelings.

Karabo finally approaches the feared Sebonta and manages to tame the beast with a kiss on the cheek.  Sebonta likes the kiss and discovers he has feelings for Karabo.  

He requests that Karabo keeps a discreet relationship with him, but being openly gay, Karabo declines.

 He wants the vicious Sebonta to do the same and come out of the closet. 

The audience is exposed to a rather seemingly awkward passionate homosexual kiss on the big screen.  Sebonta is very good at expressing his emotions and in the end he agreedsto introduce Karabo to his gang.  The gang openly rejects Karabo and Sebonta gets all sentimental about it.  Karabo confronts the gang and things turn violent as Sebonta intervenes and saves his boyfriend.

Karabo, however, is not able to save Sebonta, who in the end resorts to suicide. The scene where Sebonta is hanging from a tree seems very real and the way Karabo reacts to the sight of his fallen beast is quite emotional.  The cinematography is not sketchy and every shot seems so real.  It was a great story with amazing characters addressing a sensitive issue. 

The film was directed by Ellen Phooko and Thabiso Ranthoyakgale, the same people who directed a 10-minute gay documentary entitled, Mbako Ke Mang? at the 16th annual Ditshwanelo Human Rights Film Festival early this year. 

The director and writer of the film, Ranthoyakgale told Showbiz that Sebonta is a very explosive and compelling story that is engaging, conceptually and emotionally relevant to the Botswana audience. 

“It portrays the reality of the amount of intolerance and homophobic tendencies of our society against same-sex relationships,” he said. Despite the fact that there were four films screened that night, Sebonta turned out to be the best film of the lot judging from the audience’s reaction during and after the screening.  Compliments were passed along and recommendations were made towards government officials among others, the assistant minister of education and skills development, Fidelis Molao.

Caine Youngman from LEGABIBO, who has addressed issues of gender identity and sexual orientation, told the audience that the film addressed issues they tackle most of the time.