Telugu movie makes waves in Johannesburg

Johannesburg, April 3 (IANS): The Andhra community of South Africa has been thrilled by the efforts of an Indian filmmaker who has brought the first Telugu language movie to cinemas here.

Shyam Kumar of Chennai decided to bring "Balu ABCDEFG" to South Africa after he started a business here and found that while local cinemas made provision for Bollywood films, nobody catered to the needs of the south Indian community, which makes up about two thirds of the 1.2 million Indian South Africans.

In the KwaZulu-Natal province, where a majority of these Indians live, "Balu ABCDEFG" attracted huge interest when it was first screened.

The "ABCDEFG" part of the tile stands for "A Boy Can Do Everything For Girls".

A Telugu film had never been shown anywhere in the country since Indians first arrived in 1860 as indentured labourers for sugarcane plantations.

The screening in Johannesburg was a first for not only Gauteng but all four former provinces which make up the old Transvaal Province, according to the president of the Transvaal Andhra Sabha, Sam Naidoo.

The Transvaal was divided into four separate provinces after the advent of democracy in 1994. But due to the low number of Andhra-speaking people in the region, the representative body decided to retain its old name.

The Telugu movie industry is the second most prolific in India after Bollywood.

A local MP, Sisa Njikelana, the chief guest at the screening, guffawed loudly with everyone else at the comic scenes in the film.

Njikelana, of Zulu stock, explained his appreciation of Indian films: "From the first time I saw a Hindi film in Durban in 1984, I was very touched by the values in these films.

"It struck me that today I was encountering a new Indian language, but to me what is exciting, enjoyable, inspiring and enriching is again the richness of the Indian culture; the values that get expressed, such as good over evil. Even though the dancing is in Western style, the Indians have developed their own unique style."

Kumar said he planned to bring a second Telugu movie and some Tamil films to South Africa soon.