Mzansi has talent but it doesn’t always find its way to the world outside. South Africa’s production industry has that pesky little reputation of lacking diversity and immortalise many of the well-known faces. The evidence is quite clear on the soap operas which lack new faces and fresh talents, and on the monochromatic award shows. It is the same conversation every time and this point it is just embarrassing for the filming industry.
However, an Eighteen(18) years old Thabang Phatedi from Katlehong is an aspiring actor with a dream to break many invisible walls in the industry that prevent fresh talent from exposure. Phatedi started his acting journey two years ago along with his friends at the Art Village.“We met a group Known as Kellogs Sompisi at the Art village where we gained knowledge about acting but things never ended well for us then we moved on to work with Namanje Dawg Entertainment where we worked on a movie,” Phatedi says.“Even with that company things never ended well for us but we didn’t lose hope and we then started our small production BH production where I took Musicians, Poets, and artist who do acting,” he added.As young as he is, the young man has already seen the difficulty of making it in the industry but his optimism kept him going throughout. He has experienced rejections and failures but that did not break his faith and hope of making it big in the near future.
His entrepreneurial mind-set had him approach his career from a business perspective by producing content under his name so that he can fully reap the rewards in future.“I wrote a movie called ‘The Apology’ which was produced under my production company. So I am now an independent artist who aims to open doors for other people because I have a vision for Katlehong people and everyone who doesn’t have a platform to pursue his/her dream,” envisioned Phatedi.As big as his dreams are, at first his parents were sceptical about supporting his career choice but his love for arts convinced them otherwise. “My parents were shocked at first because they have known me for loving soccer but as time went on they got to understand that I have a passion for this and I love doing this,” said Phatedi.While many people were depressed during lockdown, Phatedi was busy getting creative and the end process of his creativity produced his first ever new movie written by him.“The lockdown period is where I got a chance to write a movie and build this production to be more stable but there were challenges big time,” he said.He said: “I don’t want my talent to remain unseen, because I have seen people who are passionate and hungry for the industry but they don’t have a platform.”
