Viola Davis plays General Nanisca and Thuso Mbedu plays Nawi at the newly released film The Woman King. Picture: © 2022 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Durban — KwaZulu-Natal born and raised star Thuso Mbedu, said training for the newly released international film The Woman King was hard as they had to train for months, they had martial art classes where they had to train with various weapons and strength training.
Mbedu was speaking at the screening of the movie that took place at the Gateway Mall on Friday at the Ster-Kinekor.
People came in their numbers at the screening of The Woman King, which stars Academy Award winner Viola Davis and South Africa’s Thuso Mbedu.
The movie, which was filmed in Jozini, shows the strength of women, it also shows the struggle of black people during the slavery days. It takes everyone through the abuse, violence and emotional abuse that black people had to endure during the old days.
Mbedu was also at the screening of her movie, looking stunning alongside David Boyega who also stars in the movie as a king.
She was stunned by the amount of support that the Durban people showed.
Among people who came to support her were famous celebrities, local celebrities and influencers.
People were surprised to see that the movie actually had at least 12 South African people who included Zozibini Tunzi, who was Miss Universe 2019.
Talking about the process of making the movie she said: “Training was extremely hard, we had burns of training for hours on end, every day. We had martial arts where we worked with different weapons, hand-to-hand combat, furthermore, we had strength training and my character relied more on speed, agility and flexibility so I had to work on that and it was awful. We also had a lot of running training, because they run a lot. It was gruesome, I definitely did doubt myself at the beginning but it was necessary because that really helped me into forming the character because she is inspiring to be a warrior.”
KZN Film COO, Jackie Motsepe, said the KwaZulu-Natal Film commission wanted to celebrate KZN talent export and bring the film to KZN to ensure people got an opportunity to watch it.
She said this was in line with their ambition and what they endeavoured to do, which is continuing to build a sustainable KZN film industry, and showcase KZN talent and stories to the world. She said the story in the film brings forth powerful messages and brings a lot of elements of African pride and adds to the gender conversation and role of a woman in the African Society.
“It is indeed a day for celebration, a real homecoming for Thuso. This movie brings great pride to us as it was shot in the Northern part of KwaZulu-Natal, Jozini. We have been taking the cast across KZN visiting schools and exploring great tourism offerings that our province has to offer,” Motsepe said.
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