Mihlali Mali born in Johannesburg and bred in Cape Town had his heart set on storytelling from a young age. Now currently studying Advanced Diploma in Film and Video Technology in Cape Town, his love and passion for film making developed from his early childhood years and it was an inspiration that stemmed from home. Like most children, Mihlali was nosey, he would listen to old people's conversations, during the interview he told me a joke about how he would listen to conversations of his mother when she had visitors and later mimic them. Watching his father who was an actor in a soapie; Thandolwethu from back in the day was also a big influence making him fall in love with film-making.
His motivation to choose this career came from his father who is part of the media industry, his dad started off in radio then he moved to acting, "my dad had a lot of video gadgets that he used to take videos of us while we were growing up, those are nice memories we have, I love watching those videos". His father moved to Cape Town joining a production company and later on started his own film production company, one of the first production companies to be founded in the townships. The exposure to the industry gave Mihlali a great vision of his older self.
He started working on a few projects, short films which were part of his curriculum in varsity, he described the experience as challenging, "working with different people while trying to find yourself & making sure that your voice is heard was a challenge". He also loved learning about the dynamics of how things work in the process of making a film. Mihlali enjoys the most shooting short films because they are stories that are narrative "I love to see how a story starts, progresses and eventually come to an end".
Professionally he has worked on many car commercials, from this experience he learnt more about the diversity and opportunities that are available in his industry. His biggest gig was being part of the production of a local drama series called 'Inkululeko', he described the experience as being big & real because the telenova actually made waves "witnessing everything happening from the beginning to the end was mind blowing, I felt really proud & privileged to have been part of that whole experience & that made me realise that there are alot of stories to tell and it's very important to connect and work with people ".
Through film-making, Mihlali wants to create a meaning to things by telling stories, he wants to take people to a completely different world by creating connections that people can relate to, his focus is on feelings, he wants to create stories that allow people to feel and be moved emotionally. His aim is to also educate & tell stories about society that are not told, remake stories which the narrative is always twisted & wrongly driven and be the voice of people who cannot speak for themselves. His philosophy of film-making is also about to encourage and motivate people to make a deep self introspection, reach the highest level of self-actualization and realise the greatness that each and everyone of us possess.
He describes his love and passion for film making as mind blowing, challenging, engaging and fun.
His future aspirations include growing and being exposed to great opportunities in the film industry. Working on international films and he'd like to have his own company where he chooses which narratives to be told. Mihlali is actually an actor as well so he would also like to be infront of the camera. He is currently working on a production project called 'Ilifu elimnyama' this is a short film that is very close to his heart. The shooting of the film starts in October, Mihlali is currently raising funds for the production of this film so a helping hand will be highly appreciated and please follow him on social media @mihlali_mali on Instagram and Mihlali Mali on Facebook.
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