Cape Town – Local streaming service, Showmax on Wednesday announced that it will be adding two acclaimed South African films to its content offering.
Movie fans can now stream this year’s Oscar-shortlisted drama Inxeba (The Wound) and the African Movie Academy Awards’ Best Film of 2018, Five Fingers for Marseilles on Showmax.
Inxeba, directed by John Trengove, tells the story of Xolani, a lonely factory worker, who joins the men of his community in the mountains of the Eastern Cape to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood. When a defiant initiate from the city discovers his best-kept secret, Xolani’s entire existence begins to unravel.
Inxeba is one of the most talked-about South African movies of the last decade. Local cinemas were forced to cancel screenings after death threats and protests about its depiction of the secret Xhosa initiation ritual, then the Film and Publications Board Tribunal reclassified it as porn (it’s not) after complaints from traditionalists, essentially banning it from mainstream cinemas. The classification was later overturned in the North Gauteng High Court.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
Five Fingers For Marseilles, directed by Michael Matthews, tells the story of the young "Five Fingers" who twenty years ago fought for the rural town of Marseilles against brutal police oppression.
Now, after fleeing in disgrace, freedom-fighter-turned-outlaw Tau returns to Marseilles, seeking a peaceful pastoral life. When he finds the town under a new threat, he reluctantly fights to free it. Can he free himself from his past? Will the Five Fingers stand again?
The Wall Street Journal suggested it could be the Western genre’s Black Panther. Variety called it "almost too entertaining for its own good."
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE: