Made in SA gets VIDI view

VIDI, South Africa’s video on demand entertainment service has recently added almost 20 locally made titles to its streaming video library. 

Most recent “home grown” additions to the VIDI line up include:

• Township Soul – this music documentary takes us back in time to the young men and women who made the music of the 70s. It relives the music that fortified South Africa’s black population and helped them find joyful expression. The audience is treated to a funky selection of tunes from top bands of the era. Through this journey the viewer comes to terms with that intangible ingredient in music that helps people survive even the most difficult situation. It reveals the essence of funky joy and of having soul nomakanjani!  The film also explores the cross-pollination of sound, fashion and politics between South Africa’s ghettoes and Black America. It is arguable that the Soul Vibe of the 70’s was a potent local brew concocted from traditional African and American music.

• Single Guys is the story of three best friends trying to navigate the world of dating: Khaya, petrified of women, is the uptight owner of a failing DVD store; Taps is a smooth-as-silk playa; while their over emotional roommate Zanele can’t stop falling in and out of love on a daily basis. You’d think it would be easier to be a Single Guy when there are three of you but it’s harder to get a girlfriend when there’s always two others peering over your shoulder.  Idiotic advice, failed attempts at being macho, trying too hard to be cool… it’s not easy being young and looking for love in the age of Facebook. The series stars Thabo Malema, Thomas Gumede and Motlatsi Mafatshe.

• For lovers of natural history shows, Shoreline is the South African answer to all those David Attenborough shows. In this 13 episode series, a team of experts (archaeologist, historian and marine biologist) take us on a 3000 km journey from Alexander Bay to Kosi Bay. They focus on the unique points of interest for each area and build an encyclopaedic picture of the South African shoreline, while discovering the secrets, the scenery and the stories that make our coast unique and how life at the edge shaped our destiny.

• Suburban Bliss is a favourite sitcom with South African audiences, as it spotlights the rocky relationship between a black and a white family – new neighbours in what was formerly an exclusively white neighbourhood. These two families are forever at each other’s throats – in the friendliest way possible, of course – as one misunderstanding after another arises out of ordinary day-to-day issues. The wives have a permanent vendetta going. One regards the other as a low class slob, and the other thinks her neighbour a pretentious yuppie.  Ma Moloi – the mother-in-law on the ‘“black” side – and Hempies – the patriarch on the “white” side of the fence – continually wage a war across the garden boundary, as the two are faced with a changing world, and they find in each other someone they can legitimately despise.  The only two people who seem to get on in this neighbourly chaos are the husbands, who spend their days trying to make peace between their feuding clans!

• Stokvel is a hugely popular comedy series from SABC2, set in the vibrant and exciting world of stokvels – a place where friends meet for companionship, good times, and a social way of saving money. This much-loved institution is the dynamic backdrop for the continuing activities of two stokvels in Diepkloof, Soweto.

• The much-acclaimed drama series, Society takes viewers on an introspective journey that deals with subject matters relevant to and portraying a universally true reflection of the stories of young South African women.  In season one, four friends; Akua (Zandile Msutwana – of White Wedding fame), Beth (Sibulele Gcilitshana), Inno (Lele Ledwaba of Stokvel notoriety) and Lois (Samela Tyelbooi) are drawn together by the suicide of their high school friend, Dineo.

• Moferefere Lenyalong is a wickedly human and authentically South African comedy that centres around the antics of the various comic characters that run and work at Kersiefontein, a guesthouse on a farm in a secluded valley in the heart of Ficksburg. With a view of the Maluti Mountains and the sandstone cliffs of the Mpharane Mountains on the Caledon River, it is the perfect location for weddings and love and lots of humour.

And finally – two shows for the kids:

• Adventures at the Water Hole is a series for children aged between six and nine years old and follows the adventures of Toti, a curious little mouse who, together with his friends – a chameleon, a frog, a goose, a warthog, a duiker and a tortoise – enjoys a series of exciting and often hilarious adventures at the water hole in a nature reserve, where his father serves as park ranger. And at the same time, he learns about his environment and how best to protect and sustain it.

• Haas Das Se Nuuskas – that all time classic children’s show about a rabbit and a mouse running a news broadcast in Diere Land. Created by Louise Smit in 1976, at the time of television’s introduction in South Africa, it was the first children’s television programme in SA. The “news” typically revolved around all the animals’ complaints, achievements and scandals. The voice of Haas Das was performed by well-known SABC news anchorman, Riaan Cruywagen.

Other local titles currently available to screen on VIDI include Liefling, Semi-Soet, How to Steal Two Million, African Sky Stories, My Perfect Family, High Rollers, Urbo – The Adventures of Pax, Magic Cellar, Dinner with the President, Gauteng Maboneng, Magical World of Luna Belle, Streets of Mangaung and a doccie on the Soweto String Quartet.  Stay tuned for a lot more local offerings to come on VIDI in the weeks and months ahead.

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