By @Bokamoso_SA
Actress Terry Pheto and director-cum-writer Charlie Vundla star again partnered for a new film, Cucklold. The film is about a young university professor who is salvaged from self-destruction by former school mate. The anti-climax of the movie is when the mate goes as far as saving his house, marriage and fortunately his life.
The film will be on screen on the 11th of November countrywide and it will leave a sweet taste on the palate on movie lovers. The trio has once again teamed up for the second time after they worked together to produce the most outstanding mzansi film: How to steal 2 million. It was released in 2011 and rose to fame the same year as it was received with excitement and compliments by South Africans.
The film was an undisputed commercial success in the film industry. However, this time around Vundla, who wrote, directed and produced the film also add taste by making appearance in the screen, in the lead role.
Pheto plays the character of luara, a wife to Smanga. She is the most beautiful yet troubled woman. Smanga’s innate capacity to see beyond her looks earned him a marriage ring to Laura. He saw the light she bares inside, he was attracted by her intelligence.
Coupled with her lingering depression, Smanga’s discovery that he is infertile leads Laura to seek other men out so that she can build her fragile self-esteem. Smanga, a nerd at heart and an academic prodigy, is broken by Laura’s departure and he sinks into alcoholic oblivion. In the role of Smanga’s old friend, Jon, a golden boy with the gift of the gab can talk his way out of anything.
A life coach by profession, he uses his looks and charm to wheedle himself into people’s lives. Having burned all his bridges, he is now living out of his car, but a chance encounter with Smanga offers a light at the end of the tunnel. Shortly after Jon moves in with Smanga, Laura returns and thus begins a unique living experiment.
“In the modern world, where every middle class child is told from day one that they’re special, can do anything and have everything, what happens when that child grows up and realises the painful truth that his parents lied?,” asked Vundla. I wanted to dig below the surface to find the failures inherent in middle-class entitlement, said Vundla.
In Vundla’s words, Cuckold is a realistic, character-driven story that examines what it is to be human through the universal struggle to survive when things don’t go our way. “We have to accept imperfections in ourselves and those around us,” added Vundla. There’s also a focus on the dichotomy in relationships – the conflict between the need for autonomy versus dependence.
The film has screened global festivals including Toronto International Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, and Africa International Film Festival (Best Actor award: Charlie Vundla) Cuckold is produced by House Rising Pictures and Siascope, in association with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The film will be distributed in South Africa by Indigenous Film Distribution.
