FILM production company, Urban Villager, owned by Eastern Cape-born Luyanda Peter, received funding from the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) to work on a documentary aimed at highlighting and celebrating some of the sports stars who were raised in rural areas of the Eastern Cape.
The idea was for the athletes, who have since gone on to represent South Africa on the international stage, to take the filming crew through the areas where they grew up and talk to their family members and school or club coaches who discovered them, as well looking at the challenges faced by youth from those rural areas.
The crew’s first shoot was in Aliwal North, where South African netball player, Zanele Vimbela, grew up and where her netball talent was discovered.
Vimbela has featured for the South Africa national netball team on several occasions, most notably in the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games, as well as the 2019 Netball World Cup.
Vimbela, who attended to Aliwal North High School, told Komani-Karoo Express that when she received a request to do this film, she did not even hesitate.
“The good thing about this documentary is that people will get to know where we come from and how we worked hard to get where we are today,” Vimbela explained.
“This will also motivate those who are still in school to work hard and believe in their talent, irrespective of where they come from.”
Vimbela, in 2019, helped the South African netball team, the Spar Proteas, to reach the quarter-finals of the Netball World Cup, their best return since 1995, when they lost in the final to Australia.
The crew then went on to Alice and Middledrift where former Proteas fast bowler, Mfuneko Ngam, and current Springbok Women’s Sevens Rugby captain, Zintle Mpupha, grew up before concluding their tour in Addo, where long-distance runner and SA Olympian, Lusapho April, comes from.
