A documentary about the life of Zephany Nurse has received the thumbs up from the British media and audiences, and can now be seen on local big screens.
After making headlines around the world in 2015, the miraculous rediscovery of Zephany was on everyone’s lips, so much so that a film was made documenting the story of the child who grew up with the name Miche Solomons.
The documentary Girl, Taken was released on the UK’s streaming platform Paramount Plus.
Girl, Taken speaks of two parents whose baby was stolen from them at birth, and who miraculously found her 17 years later, before they lost her again.
The Nurse family had a small party every year for their missing daughter, who was abducted from her cot at Groote Schuur Hospital on April 28, 1997, when she was just three days old.
In what can only be described as a miraculous coincidence, their second daughter, Cassidy, enrolled at a new school in 2015.
She met someone who looked like her – and whom DNA tests revealed to be the missing Zephany.
Police subsequently arrested the woman who abducted her, Lavona Solomon, who is currently serving a 10-year sentence at the Worcester Female Prison.
Sadly, it was a rocky road of reconciliation for Miche, now a mother of two, and her biological parents Morne and Celeste Nurse.
The UK media dubbed Zephany the “South African Madeleine McCann”, the four-year-old British meisie who was abducted from a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007.
Girl, Taken can now be seen at the Labia in Cape Town, as well as the Bioscope in Johannesburg.
Miche told IOL Entertainment: “I am so happy that audiences can view Girl, Taken on the big screen.
“I am especially happy for my parents, I hope it will be received with an open heart and that it will impact lives.”
The film, directed by Cape Town filmmakers Francois Verster and Simon Wood, and co-produced by Solsiu Films in Ireland, won the Best South African Documentary Award at the Durban International Film Festival in July.
After its theatre run, the film is scheduled for local broadcast on M-Net in early 2023.