e-lectricity

What do you automatically think of when someone says a film set in a South African township? Grinding poverty and misery all round, something worthy but perhaps a little painful to watch? Then perhaps e-lectricity might change your perspective a little. Yes, it is set in a township but is an unambiguous comedy. The township has no electricity so when the sun goes down the place is left in the dark.

However, there is some hope. Walter (played with considerable charm by Thokozani Ngoma) is an inventor – a little eccentric as you might expect but a shy and disingenuous young man, often the subject of ridicule when his attempts at generating electricity go badly wrong.

At the other end of the township is the indomitable Thimble (played by the talented Rethabile Mokhele), serial knitter and supplier of balaclavas to the settlement’s rather meek criminal underclass.

Somehow their fates are, well, intertwined.

This warm and funny short film was produced and written by Jade Galbraith and directed and written by Miklas Manneke.