The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) has selected the award-winning film Barakat as South Africa’s official submission for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards next year.
This makes Amy Jephta, of Mitchells Plain, the first woman of colour to be up for an Oscar.
Barakat follows Muslim widow Aisha Davids as she tries to bring together her fractured family over Eid to break the news about her new romance.
South African Film and Television Award (SAFTA) nominee Vinette Ebrahim stars as the mother, while her four sons, still struggling to come to terms with the death of their father two years earlier, are played by Joey Rasdien, Mortimer Williams, Keeno-Lee Hector and Danny Ross.
The cast also includes SAFTA winners Quanita Adams and June van Merch, as well as Bonnie Mbuli and Leslie Fong.
Barakat is told in Afrikaaps, making it an authentic Cape Flats story.
“I am so proud that our small story about a family has reached as many people as it has,” says Amy, the 2019 Standard Bank Young Artist of The Year for theatre, who also scripted South Africa’s official 2018 Golden Globes submission for Foreign Film, Ellen: The Story of Ellen Pakkies.
“To be recognised by South Africa in this way is incredibly special.”
Amy wrote Barakat with producer Ephraim Gordon and it was developed in partnership with kykNET.
Barakat was released at local cinemas in May and on BoxOffice by DStv in June 2021.
The film has won seven international awards so far, including Best International Feature at the 2021 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema and Best Narrative Feature at both the Motion Pictures International Film Festival and The Reel Sisters Of The Diaspora Festival in 2020.
Nominations for the 94th Academy Awards will be announced on 8 February 2022, with the Oscars ceremony taking place on 27 March 2022.
South Africa previously won the Foreign Language Film category in 2005 for Gavin Hood’s Tsotsi.