Hang on to your Brazilian wax sweet reader ... we're getting our own telenovela. Mzansi Magic has announced that the channel will be debuting our first ever telenovela this March.
The series is titled Inkaba and has pledged a commitment to be true to the telenovela format - a genre that's always been very popular in South America - most espesh in Brazil. It debuts on Monday, 19 March and will air Mondays to Thursdays.
Telenovela's we've seen here include
Ugly Betty - which was a reinvention of a famous novela of the same name - and
Pasion Morena, on Fox Entertainment on TopTV.
John Kani will be headlining the cast - which won't include
Muzi Clive Ngwenya unfortunately. Muzi was cast in it before
he passed away.
Here's more about it from the release:
Inkaba is the brainchild of Bra John, as he is fondly known. He acts as the series’ Executive Producer and also breathes life into one of the main characters.
According to Lebone Maema, Channel Head: Mzansi Magic, Inkaba is the biggest venture the channel has undertaken to date. “In less than two years, Mzansi Magic has embarked on several exciting projects, but nothing matches Inkaba. We are extremely proud of our groundbreaking proudly South African telenovela.
"It’s a story with depth, exploring our heritage, customs, vernacular and current life challenges in an unprecedented, highly entertaining way.”
But what, you may ask, is the difference between a telenovela and the soaps that have been dominating prime-time schedules for many years? And why has Mzansi Magic decided to explore this exciting daily drama format?
In contrast to the ongoing open-ended storylines of a soap, with characters coming and going along with the plot’s twists and turns, a telenovela has a clear beginning, middle and end… and numerous cliff-hangers in between. The characters are multi-dimensional and the cast remains the same for the duration of the series.
A team of M-Net executives visited Brazil where they took note of the huge potential of the format for our television landscape. Their positive feedback was followed by intensive market research and an invitation to producers to pitch concepts for the Mzansi Magic telenovela.
Yolisa Phahle, Director: M-Net Local Interest Channels, says bringing this fresh format to our shores is a coup for Mzansi Magic. “It’s the ideal vehicle to grab the attention of present-day viewers. It also provides the opportunity to tell a culturally rich South African story.”
Inkaba depicts South Africa’s diverse social landscape with the glamorous but fickle fashion industry as the backdrop.
The characters that inhabit this world soon realise that fulfilling their desires at all costs does not necessarily bring happiness and that there are ties that forever bind you to your past.
Inkaba will feature many celebrated South African actors and introduce new faces to the small screen. Mzansi Magic will reveal the cast at a later stage.
Inkaba is produced by Urban Brew and will be filmed in brand new studios built for the show.
What does Inkaba mean?
It's an indigenous Nguni word encapsulating a sense of total interconnectivity. Literally it means navel, the central point: a point from which all energy, material and knowledge emerges and is recycled.
Amongst sacred traditional rites, there is the burial of the afterbirth and umbilical cord near the village. This mirrors in the traditional greeting ‘Inkaba yakho iphi?’ translating directly to ‘where is your navel?'
The answer tells someone where you live, your clan affiliation, your social status, and it also holds a wealth of cultural information. Most importantly, it determines where you belong.