If you thought this weekend’s cumulative box office (around $43 million) was ugly, just wait until you see next weekend’s domestic cume. Sony moved Morbius from January 28 to April 1, and nothing whatsoever as slid in to fill the gap, which will lead to Spider-Man: No Way Home, Scream and Sing 2 (which is holding firm even as it tops the various VOD charts) again making up around 75% of what gets spent in the last weekend of January. Why is the domestic box office in such grim shape now? Well, the answer is slightly more complicated than “Omicron” or “streaming.”



1. The Oscar season is a bust.&nbsp;



While January isn’t usually a robust month for regularly scheduled tentpoles, we can usually count on one or two December releases successfully expanding into wide release to mainstream commercial success. Think, offhand,&nbsp;A Beautiful Mind&nbsp;($171 million in 2001/2002),&nbsp;Chicago&nbsp;($171 million in 2002/2003),&nbsp;Slumdog Millionaire&nbsp;in 2009,&nbsp;The Silver Linings Playbook&nbsp;($132 million in 2012/2013),&nbsp;The Revenant&nbsp;($184 million in 2015/2016),&nbsp;Hidden Figures&nbsp;($169 million in 2016/2017) and&nbsp;1917&nbsp;($159 million in 2019/2020). These films earned strong reviews and solid buzz in their November/December platform launches and then broke out accordingly with eventual $130-$190 million (or, in the case of&nbsp;American Sniper, $350 million-plus) domestic success once they expanded to “theaters everywhere” early in the new year. Alas, this year has no&nbsp;La La Land&nbsp;or&nbsp;Gran Torino-sized $150 million-plus breakout, nor even the likes of&nbsp;The Fighter&nbsp;or&nbsp;Black Swan&nbsp;both coasting to over/under $100 million in 2010/2011. &nbsp;



House of Gucci, with just $51 million, is the biggest-grossing awards season release with&nbsp;West Side Story&nbsp;placing second by default with $35 million. Save for maybe&nbsp;Dune&nbsp;($107 million), none of this year’s awards season flicks have broken out, with the so-called “mainstream crowd-pleasing frontrunner”&nbsp;Belfast&nbsp;stuck at $7 million and the theoretically commercial likes of&nbsp;King Richard&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Last Duel&nbsp;all earning well below the $23 million-grossing&nbsp;American Underdog. The Christmas tentpoles and the awards season darlings once thrived concurrently. You got the&nbsp;Lord of the Rings&nbsp;trilogy and the respective Best Picture winners thriving.&nbsp;Tron: Legacy&nbsp;and&nbsp;True Grit&nbsp;could both earn around $170 million over Christmas 2010.&nbsp;The Force Awakens&nbsp;($937 million)&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Revenant&nbsp;($184 million) could both be relative successes. But with audiences ignoring the Oscar flicks (or waiting until streaming), the domestic box office is almost entirely predicated on the holdover tentpole business. &nbsp;



2. Most of the December releases flopped.&nbsp;



Speaking of which, almost everything released in December tanked over the holidays. In a skewed example of the movie industry as it now exists, Spider-Man: No Way Home is the fourth-biggest domestic ($721 million-and-counting) and sixth-biggest worldwide ($1.69 billion-and-counting) grosser of all time, while almost everything else (The Matrix Resurrections, The King’s Man, American Underdog, A Journal for Jordan, West Side Story, Nightmare Alley, etc.) sits below $40 million domestic and in most cases closer to $10 million than $25 million. Yes, Illumination’s Sing 2 is a genuine, no-Covid curve theatrical hit, with a likely $140 million domestic and possible $300 million global cume on an $85 million budget. However, compare that to 2017 when The Last Jedi ($620 million), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ($404 million) and The Greatest Showman ($174 million) helped end 2017 and start 2018 with a bang. Even the $84 million gross of Ferdinand now feels aspirational.  



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/GettyImages-1359829962.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-54044" width="578" height="438" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/GettyImages-1359829962.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/GettyImages-1359829962-300x228.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/GettyImages-1359829962-768x583.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



3. Studios don’t want to cannibalize themselves.&nbsp;



Sony didn’t delay Jared Leto’s&nbsp;Morbius&nbsp;from this weekend to April 1 due to Covid concerns. If that was the case, they could have moved it right back after&nbsp;Scream&nbsp;opened with $33.8 million over MLK weekend. First, April 1 is just a better date for a big movie and second&nbsp;No Way Home&nbsp;is legging out so well (it had a smaller sixth weekend drop than any of the recent pre-Christmas December mega-movies save for&nbsp;Aquaman, Titanic&nbsp;and&nbsp;Avatar) that it’s almost silly to interrupt its stride. As&nbsp;Wag the Dog&nbsp;taught us, you don’t change horses in midstream. Sony can coast on&nbsp;Spider-Man 3 version 2.0&nbsp;grosses regardless of whether it ends up in the Best Picture race next month. Whether or not Sony is throwing in new multiverse cameos,&nbsp;Morbius&nbsp;can wait until&nbsp;Spider-Man&nbsp;has run its race. &nbsp;



Ditto Tom Holland’s&nbsp;Uncharted&nbsp;still set for February 18. Meanwhile, even if Universal wanted to fill in a hole in the schedule, Jennifer Lopez’s&nbsp;Marry Me&nbsp;(also debuting concurrently on Peacock) is specifically a Valentine’s Day weekend attraction, while moving DreamWorks’&nbsp;The Bad Guys&nbsp;from April 15 to, well, now, would only stunt&nbsp;Sing 2’s leggy run. Likewise, while it might be tempting for Paramount to move&nbsp;Jackass Forever&nbsp;to this weekend (as opposed to February 4 against Lionsgate’s IMAX-enhanced&nbsp;Moonfall), they’ve already got&nbsp;Scream&nbsp;doing halfway decent business while banking on Johnny Knoxville’s appearance on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2022/01/wwe-confirms-johnny-knoxville-for-the-royal-rumble/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">this Saturday’s WWE Royal Rumble</a>&nbsp;to goose interest in the comedy sequel. As such, the schedule as it exists remains as it was, with nothing arriving to fill the slot where&nbsp;Morbius&nbsp;was supposed to rule. I mean, I might have tossed Liam Neeson’s&nbsp;Blacklight&nbsp;onto this weekend, but it’s not my money.&nbsp;



4. The Super Bowl!&nbsp;



The Super Bowl will air globally on February 13, 2022. While history has shown that the films slated for that weekend (Death on the Nile&nbsp;and&nbsp;Marry Me) can do fine, it is a huge marketing opportunity for a slew of upcoming movies. No, I don’t know what films will get high-profile commercials during the big game, although Warner Bros. hasn&#8217;t plugged a big movie since&nbsp;Batman Begins&nbsp;in 2005. Regardless, even if they wanted to throw an upcoming movie into the January 21 or January 28 weekend, it would mean they’d be missing a chance to plug that film during the most-watched television event of the year. Sure, we may (speculation alert) see first looks at some big summer tentpoles, we will also likely get reminders for&nbsp;Uncharted, Operation Fortune, The Lost City, Morbius&nbsp;and&nbsp;Sonic the Hedgehog 2, all of which open prior to the summer season.&nbsp;



5. The Streaming Factor



Yes, the industry is dealing with Wall Street’s current preference for streaming, as well as the after-effects of studios selling off some potentially commercial flicks to streaming platforms as a way to get quick cash to weather the storm. I’d imagine Sony’s&nbsp;Hotel Transformania&nbsp;(a lack of Adam Sandler notwithstanding) would have given the box office a mild jolt (the previous three installments have grossed $1.3 billion worldwide) had it opened theatrically instead of debuting this past month on Amazon Prime.&nbsp;Encanto&nbsp;might have been a bit leggier (and opened bigger) had it not been essentially treated as a Disney+ flick with a courtesy 31-day theatrical engagement (as opposed to a theatrical event which would eventually debut on Disney+). I can’t say to what extent Warner’s&nbsp;King Richard&nbsp;and&nbsp;Matrix 4&nbsp;being available on HBO Max, along with the more mainstream Oscar flicks being at 20th Century as Disney was prioritizing Disney+, but it probably didn’t help.



Epilogue



The &#8220;good” news is we’ve been here before. In&nbsp;early 2018,&nbsp;Black Panther&nbsp;earned $700 million domestic and $1.346 billion worldwide while steamrolling a slew of tentpole flicks throughout February and March. This wasn’t&nbsp;Titanic&nbsp;sinking a bunch of small movies. The likes of&nbsp;Tomb Raider, Pacific Rim: Uprising&nbsp;and&nbsp;A Wrinkle in Time&nbsp;might have been franchise-friendly contenders absent the superior all-quadrant blockbuster. Studios held back in 2019 on stuffing the pre-Easter season with copious tentpoles. WB&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/05/24/wbs-godzilla-2-just-moved-far-away-from-disneys-captain-marvel/?sh=60618e324137">moved&nbsp;Godzilla: King of the Monsters</a>&nbsp;from March to May and everyone kept their distance from&nbsp;Captain Marvel&nbsp;(March 8). Alas, January’s&nbsp;Glass&nbsp;slightly underperformed and February’s&nbsp;The LEGO Movie 2&nbsp;tanked, leaving Hollywood waiting for Marvel. Cut to 2022, and everyone&#8217;s counting on&nbsp;The Batman&nbsp;(March 4).&nbsp;I can’t promise that&nbsp;The Batman&nbsp;will kick off a “business as usual” pre-summer season which will lead to a business-as-usual summer, but fingers crossed.

4410b599399a2b532e05d490c46f60da_4096x2725_ca977a97

5 Reasons Hollywood Is Suffering From A Box Office Slump

Former NFL wide receiver Matthew A. Cherry made it in the mecca of gigs and glamour with an Oscarwinning film marking diversity in the world of animation. We ask him how he did it.



WHEN MATTHEW A. CHERRY decided to make the transition from being a wide receiver for the National Football League (NFL) to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, he had no idea he would become “one of only 39 people of colour to ever win the most prestigious award in Hollywood”. 



Last year, he won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for Hair Love, a story he had written and directed about an African-American father attempting to do his daughter’s hair for the first time. Born in Chicago in the United States (US), Cherry began his early childhood playing sports and had big dreams of becoming a professional sportsman. He fell in love with football by the age of six after a brief stint with baseball. 



At the time, he had no idea how much the sport would change his life. Football got Cherry a full scholarship to study at the University of Akron in Ohio, and through that, he got his first big break; being drafted to the prestigious NFL, where he would spend the next couple of years playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals, Carolina Panthers and Baltimore Ravens. 



“I was always interested in film, in entertainment in general and music and I knew really early on that I wasn’t going to have a long career in the NFL and decided to retire probably a lot earlier because I got tired of moving and travelling the world in that way. I ended up retiring in 2006 and then moving to Los Angeles in 2007 to pursue a career in film and TV,” says Cherry in an interview with FORBES AFRICA from the US over Zoom in March. 



His hope at the time was to become a TV director but like many chasing the dream in Hollywood, Cherry had to earn his stripes. He had the opportunity to cut his teeth as a production assistant after meeting an alumnus of a program called Streetlights, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles (LA) that helps men and women of color find jobs as production assistants behind the scenes. 



“The inclusion efforts were nowhere near where they [are] today. I would often work on jobs, be it TV shows or whatever, and there would be 150 people in the crew and I would be the only one, two or three people of color in that crew. It was hard for people of color to break into the industry unless you went into film school or had industry connects and I had none,” says Cherry. 



Slowly but surely, he began to make a name for himself by shooting music videos for Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, and many others before transitioning to live-action short films. 



“In 2011, I did 11 music videos and directed my first feature and then a couple of years later, like 2013 and 2014, it was really dry and you try and figure out what your next move is. The thing about LA is if you put your effort into a project and that project doesn’t hit a certain way, you are back to the drawing board. Just because I did a music video for Beyoncé doesn’t mean the next job is going to be as well-paying or fruitful and so it is a constant struggle.” 



In a city famed for its glitz, glamor and garish mansions where ordinary people can morph into celebrities with millions in their Louis Vuitton suitcases, there is an illusion that you strike it big and rich instantly. Cherry is quick to correct this notion. 



“You are always on the grind and the hustle for the next gig and I have never been in a position where I don’t know how much money I am going to make this year. Just because you work in January, it doesn’t mean that you are guaranteed a job in February and there are times where I was like ‘I don’t even know if I am going to be able to make rent’ and that is very stressful in that regard. Everyone in Hollywood is hustling, trying to make it to the top and sometimes to the detriment of others and it is a very cut-throat world,” says Cherry.



 Throughout his 14-year “hustle” to breakthrough in Hollywood, the accomplished sportsman in him pushed him forward in those dark days. And he was not wrong to bet on himself. According to leagueside.com, “only 8% of the top 1% of the top 1% of high school football players will make it to NFL”. And Cherry was one of them and all he needed was that breakthrough project to convey this to Hollywood. That eureka moment happened while he was watching the Oscars one particular year.



“I’ve always watched the Oscars and that’s the biggest thing in Hollywood and I am always trying to see which black people are winning and in 2015, I was paying attention to every category and I am seeing awards being handed out for categories I didn’t even know existed, like sound mixing and sound editing, documentary short etc. 



“So, I remember seeing animated short category and they won an Oscar. They got up, they gave a speech and they got the same Oscar as the one that won Best Director or Best Actor.” 



It just so happened at the time that Cherry had an idea floating around in his head about a dad and his daughter. 



“I hadn’t told anybody yet. After the Oscar [ceremony], I called my manager and I said ‘I have an idea and if we do it right, I think we can mess around and win an Oscar’ and that is how I felt and she said ‘ok, let’s figure it out’.” 



A viral tweet about an Afro-Latino dad and his daughter was all the proof Cherry needed to know he had a potentially amazing idea. 



“I realized that a big reason why the numbers were higher was that people didn’t look at this like it’s a normal thing. We always assume that mums will be the ones doing this and mainstream media always assumes that black dads don’t support their kids. And that is because you don’t get a lot of great depictions of dads.” 



With that information, Cherry got connected with a great illustrator and developed a really strong campaign and took to Kickstarter to raise the funds to produce his first animated short. 



“I have used Kickstarter to raise money for both of my previous shoots and with both previous ideas, we barely reached $15,000. Hair Love raised $3,000 within an hour and I hadn’t even shared it with everybody yet. Then we raised $15,000 the first day and we hit our goal of $75,000 in five days and $300,000 in total when we ended the campaign and we became the highest-funded project in Kickstarter at the time,” says Cherry. 



And the rest as they say is history. The film gave Cherry the much-needed credibility and pedigree one needs to make it in Hollywood. 



“I felt a lot freer because I knew after struggling for 13 or 14 years, things will get a lot easier in terms of half the battle, like trying to get into the rooms and trying to get people to take you seriously. Something like that happens to you and you are in the next meeting and it’s a totally different energy and instead of people wondering ‘are you capable of doing it’, people are now giving you the benefit of the doubt.” 



Cherry has now signed an exclusive first-look deal with Warner Bros TV and is currently in the process of developing another animated series, Young Love, based on the characters from Hair Love, making him one of the most sought-after black directors in global entertainment today.

Untitled-1

HOLLYWOOD. HUSTLE. AND HAIR LOVE

jpeeeggg

THE 100th ISSUE: 100 Innovations, Inventions & Icons From Africa

The 2020 Emmy Awards aired Sunday night, celebrating what has, to many, been a bright spot during a gloomy year: television. While the big winners offered few surprises—&nbsp;Succession&nbsp;and&nbsp;Watchmen&nbsp;were favorites entering the night—the broadcast delivered: The heartwarming father-son shots of the<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kemberliespivey/2020/09/20/schitts-creek-star-eugene-levy-wins-his-first-emmy-in-37-years-along-with-his-son-daniel-levy/#286702222a70">&nbsp;Levys winning award after award</a>&nbsp;for their roles in the comedy&nbsp;Schitt&#8217;s Creek, the thrill of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kemberliespivey/2020/09/20/zendaya-becomes-youngest-emmy-winner-for-lead-actress-in-drama/#6307314b742d">Zendaya’s bombshell win</a>&nbsp;for&nbsp;Euphoria&nbsp;and all of it packaged in the first live award show put on during the pandemic that managed to run smoothly.&nbsp;



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/09/20/emmy-awards-2020-the-winners-list-updating-live/#7537639449b5">Emmy Awards 2020: The Winners List</a>



<h3 class="has-text-align-center">Surprise:&nbsp;Schitt’s Creek’s&nbsp;sweep</h3>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter aligncenter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">🎵 took a long time to come 🎵 <a href="https://t.co/SN7ZKsCH82">pic.twitter.com/SN7ZKsCH82</a>&mdash; Schitt&#39;s Creek (@SchittsCreek) <a href="https://twitter.com/SchittsCreek/status/1308233064405966854?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



While everyone expected&nbsp;Schitt’s&nbsp;Creek&nbsp;to take home a number of trophies, the Canadian series’ sweep of the seven top comedy awards was unprecedented in the Emmy’s 72-year history. The show took home all four comedy acting awards, Best Writing and Directing of a Comedy, and Best Comedy Series. The show also produced father-son wins for Eugene and Daniel Levy, who won for both writing, directing and acting. The unspoken winner behind it all?&nbsp; Pop TV: The cable network walked away with more Emmys than Netflix&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/netflix" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NFLX</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/netflix">+3.7%</a>.



<h3 class="has-text-align-center">Snub: Every other comedy</h3>



Sure,&nbsp;Schitt’s Creek&nbsp;was expected to take home comedy’s big wins, but a seven-for-seven streak was not—and it meant a number of shows and actors got completely locked out of the winners’ circle, including&nbsp;Ramy’s Ramy Youssef,&nbsp;Dead to Me’s Linda Cardellini and&nbsp;The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden.&nbsp;What We Do in the Shadows,&nbsp;an underdog favorite for Best Comedy Series, also walked away empty handed.



<h3 class="has-text-align-center">Surprise: The 2020 Emmy Awards Broadcast</h3>



The 2020 Emmy Awards were a gamble. As the first awards show to go completely live during the coronavirus pandemic, they relied on flexibility, an unflappable host and reliable wifi. Insiders and outsiders raised their eyebrows in skepticism when the Television Academy announced its plan. But the night seemingly went off without a hitch. Despite the fact that the Emmys dispatched more than 100 cameras to nominees all over the country, there were no technical glitches to speak of, and host Jimmy Kimmel handled the delicate task of hosting the show during a global pandemic, raging wildfires and political division with grace, aided by quarantine-favorite DJ D-Nice.



<h3 class="has-text-align-center">Snub: Netflix</h3>



Netflix may have had more nominations than any other network or streaming service with a record 160 nods, but still walked away from Sunday’s show nearly empty handed. The only awards the streamer won during the Primetime Emmy ceremony were for Best Supporting Actress, Drama (Julia Garner of&nbsp;Ozark) and Best Directing, Limited Series (Unorthodox). Including the creative arts Emmys, Netflix won a total of 21 awards.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2020/09/20/in-prestige-tv-vs-streaming-emmy-showdown-prestige-wins-by-a-mile/#1af74f1b2508">HBO took home</a>&nbsp;30 awards out of its 107 nominations, including 12 at the primetime ceremony with&nbsp;Succession&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kemberliespivey/2020/09/20/yahya-abdul-mateen-ii-wins-his-first-emmy-dedicating-statuette-to-all-of-the-black-women-in-my-life/#14671e1e6f2e">Watchmen</a>&nbsp;scoring big wins in the Drama and Limited Series categories. Meanwhile Disney+,&nbsp; Amazon Prime&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AMZN</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon">+0.2%</a>&nbsp;and Apple&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/apple" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AAPL</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/apple">+3%</a>&nbsp;TV+ are still far behind the big two; those streaming services took home eight, three and one awards, respectively, with Apple TV+ the only one to win a prize on Sunday night.&nbsp;



<h3 class="has-text-align-center">Surprise: Diversity&nbsp;</h3>



The Emmy Awards—like Hollywood itself—are notorious for their lack of diversity, but the issue took center stage on Sunday. Throughout the broadcast, the Emmys brought attention to the issue of the need for diversity in television with&nbsp;Insecure’s Issa Rae,&nbsp;Ugly Betty’s&nbsp;America Ferrara and&nbsp;The Chi’s Lena Waithe sharing their experiences as women of color in the industry. This year’s acting nominees, which were announced at the height of the protests for racial equality this summer, were notably diverse. A record 39 people of color were nominated out of the 102 acting nominations. It is rare that those nominations translate to wins; this year a total of seven acting awards went to Black performers, a new record. On Sunday’s ceremony Black actors took home four of 16 awards, with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kemberliespivey/2020/09/20/regina-king-wins-her-fourth-emmy-for-lead-actress-in-a-limited-series-or-movie/#502711a967b1">Regina King taking home her fourth Emmy</a>—she now ties with Alfre Woodard for the most Emmy wins for a Black performer—and Zendaya became the second Black woman to ever take home the award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama. But there is work to be done. The winners, behind and in front of the camera, are still overwhelmingly white, and Latinx and disabled people were completely shut out of the nominations. “I love being a Black woman, I loved being a Black girl,&#8221; King said in the press room following her win.&#8221;I love being American, and it&#8217;s important that people see all of those things together.”



<h3 class="has-text-align-center">Snub: Jennifer Aniston</h3>



Going into the night, Jennifer Aniston was the favorite for Best Actress in a Drama Series. America’s sweetheart returned to television in a starring role for the first time since&nbsp;Friends&nbsp;wrapped in 2004. She never won an Emmy for her breakout role as Rachel, and her dramatic turn in Apple TV+’s&nbsp;Morning Show&nbsp;seemed like a natural winner. While critics unanimously praised Zendaya’s performance as a struggling teenage drug addict in HBO’s&nbsp;Euphoria,&nbsp;her win for Best Lead Actress in a Drama seemed to shock her as much as it did the viewers. The youngest woman to ever win the award at age 24, she spoke to her generation as she accepted the award.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large">“I just want to say to all our peers out there doing the work in the streets: I see you, I admire you, I thank you.”<cite>-Zendaya</cite></blockquote>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter aligncenter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">Still don’t really have any words&#8230;.feeling so much love right now, thank you. <a href="https://t.co/ZKpn46lLiW">pic.twitter.com/ZKpn46lLiW</a>&mdash; Zendaya (@Zendaya) <a href="https://twitter.com/Zendaya/status/1308106132590792704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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By Madeline Berg, Forbes Staff

Emmy Host Jimmy Kimmel laughs with stage Manager Gary Natoli during rehearsals Friday for the 72nd Annual Emmy Awards taking place at Staples Center this Sunday.

Emmy Awards 2020: Zendaya And ‘Schitt’s Creek’ Shine, While Netflix Gets Snubbed

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The English actor, who tested Covid-19 positive last month, launches global coronavirus relief fund with UN.  







English actor Idris Elba, the man who played the late South African president Nelson Mandela in the 2013 biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, has just been designated a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and has launched an appeal with his wife Sabrina for a $200 million coronavirus relief fund for rural communities, as per a report by APO.



Elba, who announced he had tested positive for Covid-19 on March 16, launched the global coronavirus relief fund to help prevent the pandemic from creating a global hunger and food crisis, and to keep food systems running.



With $40 million in seed money from IFAD, the multi-donor Covid-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility aims to raise at least an additional $200 million from governments, foundations and the private sector to lessen the impact of the disease on rural small-scale farmers and producers.



 In a statement, Elba said: “The world’s advanced economies are in the midst of this pandemic right now and, of course, they must do everything they can to help their own people. Every death is one death too many at a time like this. But the fact is, global action is also a matter of self-interest. As long as the pandemic is still raging anywhere, it will pose a threat everywhere. IFAD needs more assistance to carry on the work that is desperately needed to keep food systems operating in rural areas if we are to come out of this crisis together and avoid needless hunger and suffering.”



IFAD is ensuring farmers can access seeds and other inputs, in a move that is hoped will avert a potential food and hunger crisis.

By Rodney Quarcoo IFAD

‘Avoid Needless Hunger And Suffering’: Idris Elba For Poor Farmers

From humble beginnings to the limelight in  Hollywood, their success is for every ordinary African with big dreams and a bigger mission.



From the dusty rural Moutse village in South Africa’s
Limpopo province to the bright lights of Hollywood, the Ndlovu Youth Choir have
proven there can be no impediment to global glory if your ambition is great and
your passion greater.



When this group of young boys and girls came together, little did they know the world would rise in unison to applaud them. Late last year, their turn as the finalists of America’s Got Talent, a televized American talent show competition in the United States created by Simon Cowell, earned them prowess and praise.



So when an opportunity came to meet them at popular South
African restaurant Nando’s in the suburb of Lorentzville in Johannesburg,
during a launch event last month, I seized it with conviction and my camera.



The choir’s co-founder and choirmaster Ralf Schmitt started from the beginning, about how he got involved with the group at the opening of the amphitheater in the village of Moutse.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2019/06/26/three-heavy-grammys-and-a-world-singing-their-praise/">Soweto Gospel Choir: Three Heavy Grammys And A World Singing Their Praise</a> 



What started out as a mission to serve the community ended up becoming an even greater force – on the world stage.



“This is the same village that raised the Ndlovu Youth Choir powered by the Ndlovu Care Group. The group was doing amazing work with HIV awareness and treatment in the early 2000s and the amphitheater was built for the community to gather, receive information and do drama workshops around HIV/AIDS.”



Schmitt was contacted to do music for the opening in 2008 because of his track-record in the industry, as he was also part of the internationally-renowned Drakensburg Boys’ Choir.



“I’ve always loved choir and singing. I went on to study music and it worked from day one. I started conducting school choirs and worked with young people. I love composing, I love conducting, I love performing and I love teaching and the medium of a choir allows me to do them all,” he enthuses. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"> These young people can be the beacons of what’s possible in a rural community. <cite>Ralf Schmitt</cite></blockquote>



He had originally suggested they start a brass band but
because of their location in Limpopo, far from big city Johannesburg, it would
have been difficult for the teachers and trainers to regularly access and
develop them.



The choir became the obvious choice as part of the orphans and vulnerable children’s program at the Ndlovu Care Group.



The horrific HIV pandemic had left many orphaned and the program was meant as a healing curriculum for the community. It became so successful that when it came for the participants to leave school, they were not willing to leave the program as they were unable to find employment or afford secondary education.



Schmitt says thus an idea of transforming the choir into a platform to generate an income for unemployed youth was born.



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Today, the choir boasts about 40 members and includes a job creation program for the older singers who do most of the performances.



The choir has also started a home schooling program for learners – a full-time tutor travels with them locally and internationally.



“When we turned professional in 2018, it took about six months to get us going. I called a few people I knew in the industry and bookings were coming in slow,” recalls Schmitt.



“We needed a product and the arrangement we did of a Zulu version of Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran, brilliantly translated by Sandile Majola and Sipho Hleza, went massively viral on social media and had 25 million views and that got the nation’s attention and that was the first time we got serious publicity and bookings started flooding in.” 



Soon after, the choir performed live for a South African radio station and that’s where America’s Got Talent heard the Zulu arrangement and made contact and asked for videos. 



He remembers he couldn’t get the videos out to the producers
because of service delivery protests in the area. The choir conductor was
blocked by an angry mob with burning tyres and rocks, but that didn’t stop the
choir from performing at the Derby Theatre miles away from home. 



“I am so pleased that these young people can be the beacons
of what’s possible in a rural community, every single one of them are from that
community and not anyone went and studied music at tertiary level, all that is
produced is raw talent and they never had a music lesson in their life. As the
artistic director, I try very hard at preserving that talent because that’s the
magic,” he says. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1336-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-43250" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1336-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1336-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1336-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1336-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1336-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1336.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



The first time they got on stage, he recalls thinking that
the audience didn’t know them; they probably just saw the group as kids from a
rural community in South Africa. 



However, the warmth they received was unforgettable.
Whereas, in comparison, the experience at America’s Got Talent was intense and
draining, but exhilarating, he recalls.



“It was nerve-racking when the music went down and the lights dimmed and Gabrielle Union [American actress] screamed ‘you are going through!’ and everyone just lost their minds. It was special we were through to the live finale.”



Thulisile Masanabo is one of the senior members in the choir
who also assists with wardrobe. She has been with the choir since 2013 when she
was 16 and very shy. 



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“I used to stand at the back of the row at the beginning. As
the years went, I began to gain confidence and moved to the third row, then
second, now, I’m in the first row,” says Masanabo.&nbsp; 



She opened the song Africa by Toto wearing bright yellow
garments to a noisy and ecstatic American crowd. 



Looking back, she chuckles saying she had auditioned singing
the South African national anthem. 



“I was on my way back from school and Sandile called me in.
He was standing outside and just calling people in to audition. He didn’t want
to know if you can or cannot sing,” Masanabo says of her recruitment into the
group. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-43247" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



All members of the choir are under the age of 30; among
them, is 25-year-old Majola who helped arrange the Zulu version of Shape Of
You.



He joined when he was a 14-year-old school boy accompanying
his sister to the auditions. 



“I was invited inside to try my luck on August 23, 2009,” he
recalls vividly. 



“I first traveled internationally with the choir in 2011 to
Holland and the performance was average, it was not as nice as we perform
today.”



He says the choir upped his self-esteem and he now can
communicate better with people and perform more effectively on stage. 



One of the songs instilled in him was written by Schmitt
titled Believe dedicated to the choir.



 “The message was for us, but now, it’s for other young people as well. They should never stop dreaming,” says Majola. 



This young group of music-lovers is testament that believing
and dreaming big can indeed make you cross borders. 



Their journey was from a tiny village, to grabbing the
limelight in one of the globe’s biggest talent search shows. The world is now
truly their stage.

America’s Got Talent – Season 14

The Talented Choir That Never Had A Music Lesson

Making an unforgettable movie is not the only requirement to win the prestigious best picture Oscar. Add millions of dollars for TV and digital ads, plus actors’ travel, hair and makeup for events to promote their work on the busy film campaign trail. 



If the race is close, as it is heading into Sunday’s awards ceremony, studios must dig deeper to gain an edge with the roughly 8,000 voters in the Academy for Motion Picture Arts &amp; Sciences.



Netflix Inc and AT&amp;T Inc’s Warner Bros. are among the distributors opening their checkbooks to try to land the most-coveted golden statuette.



“You have to spend money,” said Matthew Belloni, editorial director at The Hollywood Reporter. “You have to shake hands. You have to have a message for your movie.”



“It’s about working the people out there and getting the academy to know you and to believe in your film,” he added.



For the eventual winner, the investment will pay off. A best picture trophy brings in extra box office dollars, plus cachet to help attract A-listers for future projects.



So from December through late February, actors, directors, producers and writers attend a heavy schedule of lunches, screenings, cocktail receptions and panel discussions, crisscrossing the country to get in front of voters in the industry hubs of New York and Los Angeles.



Aside from the movie’s stars, studios recruit A-list fans to host events, such as a “Roma” screening with Angelina Jolie, part of Netflix’s push to secure the first best picture award for a streaming service.



The “Roma” publicity campaign cost roughly $25 million, according to estimates from Hollywood publication Variety. The tab for Warner Bros.’ “A Star is Born” was just under $20 million, Variety said.



Much of that spending was dedicated to TV commercials, plus online ads on Hollywood-oriented news sites or Facebook. Some ads also are aimed at encouraging consumers to see the films.



Part of the Warner Bros. campaign involved covering a Sunset Strip billboard with a picture of Ally, Lady Gaga’s “A Star is Born” character. The signage is a replica of one seen in the film and looks like a promotion for the fictional star.



Studios also are trying out new experiences, said Marc Becker, chief executive of The Tangent Agency, which works with Hollywood studios on marketing campaigns. Netflix, for example, put together an exhibition of “Roma” costumes and props.



“They have always wined and dined people,” Becker said of awards campaigners, “but now they are immersing them even more in the world of the properties.”



Other films in the best-picture race are “Green Book” and “BlacKkKlansman” from Comcast Corp, 21st Century Fox’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “The Favourite,” Annapurna Pictures’ “Vice,” and Walt Disney Co’s “Black Panther.”



Disney’s campaign elevated “Black Panther” from superhero tale to an important cinematic milestone for its celebration of black culture, Belloni said.



“They’ve successfully reintroduced this comic book movie as a very serious artistic endeavor,” he said, “and they’ve been rewarded for that.” -Reuters



-Lisa Richwine; Additional reporting by Rollo Ross

91st Annual Academy Awards – Governors Ball Press Preview

Want To Win An Oscar? Spend Millions On The Film Campaign Trail

If you close your eyes, you may remember this. It was a historic moment for Africa’s film industry. For the second time, a South African film stood a chance to win an Oscar. Millions anxiously glued to their TVs, crossing fingers in hope. With a white envelope in hand, American actor Will Smith took to the stage. Without hesitation, he announced Tsotsi as the winner of the Best Foreign Language Film award in 2006.
The Kodak Theatre in Hollywood was packed with the who’s who of America’s film industry. You could see Terry Pheto, a newcomer in the industry who played Miriam in the film, clap her hands and sigh in relief as director Gavin Hood accepted the award. History had been made and Pheto’s life was never to be the same.
For Pheto, this was a world away from the streets of Evaton, the township 50 kilometers south of Johannesburg, where she was born on May 11, 1981. Here, she found her love for acting.
“My love for acting came from the love of storytelling. My grandmother was the best storyteller and I looked forward to story time every evening. My cousin, Siya, even nicknamed me storyteller because I also started telling stories like my grandmother,” says Pheto.
It didn’t end there.
Pheto says she knew she wanted to tell stories for a living. At the age of 20, she left home to study acting in Johannesburg. It was tough. She lived in a shack until she was 21. One day, while acting in community theater, she was discovered by Moonyeenn Lee, South Africa’s casting agent extraordinaire.
With a talented agent by her side, Pheto thought the road to stardom had finally arrived, yet she went to audition after audition for over a year and had no job.
“I had roles that had been offered before but they never worked out. Sometimes the filmmakers would decide to go a different direction,” she says.
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She was ready to pack her bags and go home when she received the script for Tsotsi.
“I am thankful that I trusted the process because I feel like God wanted me to be in Tsotsi which was my first film and was massive for my career. I was introduced to the industry by the right project.”
<div id="attachment_34890" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34890" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34890" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Terry-Pheto-Tsotsi-e1513844140788-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />From left to right: Actor Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto and director Gavin Hood with the Oscar that Tsotsi won. (Photo by Getty Images)</div>
It was the perfect role for Pheto. Miriam is an attractive, young, single mother. She lost her husband, who was murdered on his way home from work. Despite her pain, she maintains her dignity and runs a small sewing business to support herself and her child.
It marked the rise of who many see as the leading lady of film in Africa. Everyone wanted a piece of her talent. International roles quickly trickled in.
In 2008, Pheto joined the list of beauties endorsing L’Oreal.  It set her as the first South African face for the cosmetics giant. She then left South Africa to try her luck in Hollywood. It was the right decision. She landed a recurring role as Dr Malaika Maponya on The Bold and the Beautiful, an American soap opera watched by 35 million people every day.
“I got a call from the SABC and I thought it was a joke… Because I didn’t audition for the role, the role was given to me… It was such an honor to work with people who have been doing this for such a long time and being chosen was dream come true for me,” she says.
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Pheto says working on a soap was a culture shock. She was used to films where there is more time to work. On a soap there are multi cameras and everything is done at lightning speed.
Her acting career was progressing just as quickly.
In 2017, Pheto also became the first South African to play Winnie Mandela, a character that has been played by American singer and actress, Jennifer Hudson, London-born Sophie Okonedo and Naomie Harris, an award-winning Cambridge University educated actress. These are big shoes to fill, but Pheto nailed the role in the miniseries, Madiba.
Pheto says she always felt like she knew Winnie Mandela, even before she met her because of how people admired her. In preparation for the role, she read books and watched interviews and documentaries of the struggle icon.
“Playing Mam’ Winnie Mandela has always been my ultimate dream. She is powerful and remains a beacon of hope considering all she has been through. …I have met her before but Mam’ Winnie hasn’t been too well so I couldn’t spend time with her to prepare for this role. There is no greater blessing than living your dream. I am very lucky to be doing what I love,” she says.
<div id="attachment_34891" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34891" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34891" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Terry-Pheto_JC-200x300.jpg" alt="Terry Pheto" width="300" height="450" />Terry Pheto (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
At home and abroad, this leading lady always steals the show. Hard work mixed with talent has won her more awards than we can count.
This September, she added two international accolades, at International Achievement Recognition Awards (IARA Awards) in London, to the list. She was the biggest winner of the night bringing home the Best Actress 2017 award for her role in A United Kingdom, and the Best Actress TV/ Drama 2017 for her role in Madiba.
“Both A United Kingdom and Madiba portray very important stories. Seeing these stories travel globally has been a beautiful journey. It has been an absolute honor to be in a position to have played strong characters in both roles. Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela for example is one of the strongest women I know. I’m in awe of her strength and resilience after all she’s been through. She inspires me to believe that I can overcome any obstacles or challenges in life and still remain human, kind and unshaken,” says Pheto.
A United Kingdom depicts the true story of Seretse Khama, Botswana’s first president.  Pheto plays his sister, Naledi Khama, alongside British-Nigerian actor, David Oyelowo, known for playing Martin Luther King Jr in the 2014 awarding winning movie, Selma.
Oyelowo is not the only international star Pheto has worked with. Among them, she counts Idris Elba on Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom.
“It was fun working with Idris. He is very humble and very talented,” she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2015/10/01/trailing-charlize-theron/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Trailing Charlize Theron?</a>
Pheto says her mind is always working in overdrive. It means she can wear many hats. In addition to her successful career in front of the camera, she is also an entrepreneur.
“I knew it is important to also be behind the scenes and know what happens there. I am able to produce and also act and do other things. You just have to surround yourself with the right people.”
Ten years after Tsotsi, Pheto produced her first film under her production company, Leading Lady Productions. The production company has just finished working on a short film shot in Los Angeles.
“I am working on developing enough content. There is a library of scripts I am going through for next year,” she says.
There is more.
This year, Pheto and her best friend, actress Mampho Brescia, cofounded, Let’s Learn Toys, an educational toys company to help prepare children to be leaders. Although not a mother yet, Pheto says, in a statement, she is a devoted aunt who tries to give children around her more than she had growing up. The company has 2,000 different toys for children between 12 months and 18 years.
Surely, there should be a secret to this success?
“One thing I learned from a very young age is to be humble and always respectful. These are the principles my mother and grandmother taught me and they were right because people can see through you. Working hard and everything else just adds to that,” she says.
Clearly, this is not the last we will see of Pheto.

Terry Pheto: From Community Theater To The World Stage

You are an established Hollywood actress now – an Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave, do you have any plans to start your own business, be it a production house or otherwise?
Well, I actually am producing a film, Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I am putting that hat on my head.
&nbsp;
<h3>And how is it going wearing two hats?</h3>
It is going well, it’s a learning curve for sure. But this is an industry I am very passionate about, I love storytelling. So I am just learning a new way to tell a story.
&nbsp;
The experience of being on the red carpet that night of the Oscars, what goes through your mind when they announce your name?
It was very confusing.
&nbsp;
<h3>In what sense does time stop?</h3>
It’s just I didn’t know if they had said my name or if I had said my name or my brother said my name, and you have no time to figure it out, you have to get up there and say something.
&nbsp;
And in terms of your process for a role, what do you do to embody the character, what is your method as it were?
Each role speaks for itself and you kind of design your preparation, depending on the kind of role. But it always starts with research about the world the character lives in.
&nbsp;
<h3>What kind of research did you do for Queen of Katwe?</h3>
Well, it was about learning as much as I can about these people. I was fortunately privileged enough to have the real Harriet – she is very much alive and kicking – and I sat with her and asked her to tell me about herself from her perspective and that was really cool, to ask her why she let Phiona go to Robert Katende’s chess academy and she was very practical, she said ‘he could give her a cup of porridge when I couldn’t’. So this is a woman who is very practical and principled as well and I felt very honoured to play because her dignity is one that doesn’t have a price tag on it.
&nbsp;
<h3>What is the experience of shooting in Uganda like?</h3>
It was incredible, to be on location shooting in the places where these things transpired, you are doing research as you walk and every day you are learning something new and deepening your understanding of your character and the world you live in. So for me, it was very fertile to be in Kampala, in Katwe, in its environments.
&nbsp;
<h3>As an African actress, you’ve now very much become an icon on this continent, do you feel it’s a big responsibility to shoulder and how do you feel to potentially mentor young girls to get where you’ve gotten to?</h3>
Well I don’t feel a responsibility at all, I feel like it’s my opportunity, it’s a conviction of my heart. I didn’t grow up seeing very many movies like Queen of Katwe, certainly not told by Disney so to have a chance to be that mirror this time feels very meaningful.
&nbsp;
<h3>Marvel’s Black Panther… what is your involvement there, are you are allowed to talk about it?</h3>
I am allowed to say who I am playing which is Nakia, and that’s about it.
&nbsp;
<h3>Is it a big studio film or…?</h3>
It’s Marvel… so it’s in the league of Captain America, Avengers and Iron Man… those kind of movies.
&nbsp;
<h3>Other than that, what are your future plans at this stage?</h3>
I am definitely looking forward to that, I have not shot that yet. So that is coming up shortly, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and totally new role for me and I will be producing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah as well and I hope to do comedy sometime soon.
&nbsp;
<h3>In terms of influences, who are they, be it directors, actors or actresses?</h3>
Oh…I am very fortunate to work with people like J.J Abrams, Mira Nair, and Steve McQueen to name a few. I love Cate Blanchett, I love her work, I loved Elizabeth Taylor as well, Viola Davis is fierce, Sidney Poitier is incomparable, yeah, those are some of them…

Queen of Katwe Movie Premier in South Africa

‘I Hope To Do Comedy Sometime Soon’

From the dusty streets of Harare to the glam green rooms of Hollywood, hers was a journey that transcended vistas and visages.
Jackie Mgido, Zimbabwean hairstylist and make-up artist to the stars, was a poor girl in a humble Harare neighborhood with big dreams, an artistic hand and an eye for beauty.
“I did not have an amazing childhood but I had an amazing childhood in my head. Everything that I did was magical and everything that I did, I dared to dream,” says the 42-year-old cosmetics entrepreneur, who worked with Hollywood A-listers such as John Legend, Morris Chestnut, Denzel Washington, P Diddy, Jamie Foxx and Sylvester Stallone, before returning home to start her own beauty brand Vault Cosmetics.
Mgido had moved to the United States 20 years ago hoping to make films, and for a better look at the beautiful faces facing the camera.
“I wanted to understand how they were able to make people look so amazing on camera,” she says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-31937 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />
She then enrolled at the Make-Up Designory, popularly known as MUD, in California, where she studied the art and later interned at several Hollywood studios. After spending almost five years meticulously planning her business strategy and her next move, she wanted to start something new but the fear of failure stalled her dream.
For a professional who turned dour to dazzling with her magic make-up wand, she was confronted with a new reality back home in Zimbabwe, and then came the epiphany.
“One time I visited Zimbabwe and noticed there was something missing, women were neglected, I looked at so many beautiful women but a lot of them were really dark and could not see their beauty, so I decided to do something to enhance their beauty,” says Mgido.
That was it. She launched her own line in 2012 but suffered major setbacks, even losing a staggering $60,000 in the first six months, of the $100,000 she and her husband had invested in the business.
“If it was not for my husband, I would have given up. What motivated me to continue is that I have a gift and it’s not about me. This is what I am supposed to be doing in life, touching lives through make-up.”
Vault Cosmetics is available in Zimbabwe’s cities and has branches in the US, UK and now South Africa. She says her brand is worth over $5 million.
Last year for the Emmy Awards, Mgido made up awards host and Glee star Jane Lynch, and has also been contracted by Food Network to do on-set make-up for celebrity chefs including Alex Guarnaschelli, Duff Goldman, Tyler Florence and Cat Cora. Last year, she was awarded Female Entrepreneur of the Year for her start-up business at the African Women Awards.
All her products are made in the US, but she is currently in Zimbabwe setting up a manufacturing company. Her biggest challenge has been getting the product to the people. Zimbabwe’s import laws and taxes have made things tough for her, she says, but she’s currently in talks with revenue authorities and hopes they will appreciate her desire to invest in her home country. Mgido has also invested her hard-earned dollars in Zimbabwean communities, opening windows of opportunity for many young women. Her make-up academy in Harare is training young artists passionate about learning more about the beauty business.
With the right investors, she intends expanding her business in Southern and West Africa, her targets being Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Kenya and Nigeria.
We meet her in Johannesburg on a recent visit to expand her business.
“I came to South Africa because I was told I could not and would not be accepted, knowing perfectly well that every woman has one goal and that goal is to be loved and seen, I had to bring Vault to South Africa.”
And this, she says, is only the beginning, with an excitement no greasepaint can conceal.

Vault_Forbes-18-of-19

The Artist Changing The Face Of Africa

After acquiring a degree in psychology, Lee-Anne Summers left her home in Cape Town to study acting at the New York Film Academy. While in The Big Apple, she was closer to Hollywood than she ever was, but irony was that it was only after returning to Cape Town she actually got to work with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Summers recently got her first big international assignment, in a supporting role in the film Momentum, shot in The Mother City and starring Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko and James Purefoy.
Summers plays the wife of a bank robber on the run who relies heavily on Kurylenko’s character to stay alive. Her real education was on the sets of the film.
“The biggest lesson I learned from working with such big stars was to trust my instinct as an actor,” she says.
“I think sometimes as South African actors, we [are] so grateful that we got the job, we [are] so scared to hike up and go, ‘hang on a second, this doesn’t work for my character, my character wouldn’t say that specific line’. As an actor, you know that character better than anyone before you step in front of the camera; and before, I would force myself to just make it work, but now, I know I can speak up,” she says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30862 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2015/10/for-pic-doc-240x300.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/for-pic-doc-240x300.jpg 240w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/for-pic-doc-300x375.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/for-pic-doc-600x750.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/for-pic-doc-768x960.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/for-pic-doc-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/for-pic-doc.jpg 818w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" />
While she may be just entering the international film arena, Summers is not a newbie to acting. She has appeared in many much-loved local TV productions such as Binnelanders, Rhythm City and the seven-part mini-series Stellenbosch. She has also made appearances on the stage, and recently styled for and starred in a short film, The Choice, which won the Mercedes-Benz award for Best Fashion Film at the 2015 Bokeh International Fashion Film Festival.
With a decent career in acting behind her, Summers admits the South African film industry is still in its infancy.
“Our industry is not yet at the point where we can demand higher salaries, we are still trying to grow. We are essentially in our infancy when you compare it to Hollywood and Bollywood. There is a big gap between salaries for local hires and salaries for international hires, but that’s understandable, they are more bankable, they put bums on seats. We are still trying to get to that point,” she avers.
Summers currently has three films releasing this year: The Little Kings, Safari and Momentum, which is expected to hit theatres soon.
“I would love my country to look at me and say ‘I’m so proud of her, she went to Hollywood and she made it’.”
And what does she think about her country’s most famous export to Hollywood, Charlize Theron?
“In a perfect world I would love to be the next Charlize Theron, but I don’t think she is giving up her crown soon as she is still doing phenomenal work.”
For now, the Queen Bee reigns.

for-pic-docLeeAnneSummers_8768

Trailing Charlize Theron?

It is a gathering of geeks that could be made into a Hollywood blockbuster; an eight-year-old Thor struggles to carry a hammer the size of her head; Pokémon’s Misty throws a Poké Ball for her dog painted as Pikachu; and a deadly life-size Blood Raven Space Marine poses patiently as he towers over a fan.
This is the scene as 5,000 geeks queue on a warm winter Saturday morning for what is called GeekFest, at Huddle Park Golf Course, Johannesburg.
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“This is the era of the geek. We will inherit the earth,” says Anré van Rooyen, one of the hundreds dressed as villains and heroes from comic books to computer games.
A year ago, it would have been unheard of. For some, it came through eyes glued to the television, others from cramped hands over the keyboard. It’s born out of the urge to identify with characters that don’t exist in real life. But hey, who cares about real life?
They call it cosplay. If the cape fits or a suit of armor swaggers, then so be it. It is an idea born in Japan and took off in America at comic book conventions. In Malaysia, at a recent conference, the queues stretched for miles as fans waited to get into a convention. In Africa, it’s growing in the south.
“We’re between the golden age and silver age of cosplay. In the rest of the world, the silver age of cosplay has died out; people are very rarely wowed by what they see. However, in South Africa, we’re all still learning and experimenting, trying to find local solutions for international problems. We’re still getting called freaks; we’re still being called weird. But most of all, we are still growing,” says Van Rooyen.
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Dressed as one of the characters from the Japanese anime Attack on Titan, Van Rooyen is more than your average cosplayer on the greens of Huddle Park. On this day, the woman who has been dressing for six years is one of the judges at the Cosplay Competition. Van Rooyen’s tough task is deciding which of the 70 entrants is the best dressed on the day. They are judged according to accuracy to character, craftsmanship skill and their performance.
“There was a general hike in attention to detail and crafting. The winners, Tayla Barter, Christopher Griesel and Chantélle Cridland, they absolutely blew us out of the water. For Tayla it was her crafting and amazing paint job; with Christopher it was the fact that he built his entire Blood Raven armor without a pattern and it just&#8230; wow; Chantélle had a bald cap on so good, that I freaked out for a second that she shaved her head. Her detail in her outfit was astounding, as well as impeccable sewing, (so good I hid my war-crime-sewing under the table). I’ve attended all three years of GeekFest now, and every year it just keeps getting better. I can’t wait to see what next year has to offer.”
The South African gaming characters rarely fail to turn heads. The only problem is getting hold of your own wigs and colored contact lenses in the post. Unsurprisingly, because of this they make their outfits instead – at least their armor gives better protection than postal tracking codes.
So, cosplayers band together, from Johannesburg to Cape Town, to help make their dream outfits with nothing but thread, needle and drills, PVC piping, and industrial glue.
“Have you seen any other international cosplay picnic where the cosplayers hiked in full cosplay halfway up a mountain in boiling temperatures to get photos by a waterfall? Our community is special and amazing and growing by the minute,” says Van Rooyen.
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“If you look at South Africa’s biggest cosplay group, Cosplay SA, they have 2,004 members, but we’re quite sure there are more than that. Its growth over the past 10 years has skyrocketed. We used to see all of 10 people at most events, and the same people at that, but now there are hundreds in each city,” says Ray Whitcher, a lecturer in multimedia design by day and Legion Ink Cosplay organizer by night.
It is a hobby for young and old, according to Van Rooyen.
“I am so excited to be part of this; to be part of what will soon be our silver age in cosplay. This is how we express ourselves; this is how we have fun. We’re all part of one family. Sure we got drama, sure we have the occasional bullying, but we have freedom to become someone we can’t be in everyday life. I can be Wonder Woman for a day and I can be Harley Quinn for a day. I can be a hero, a criminal, a crazy person, a boy, a girl. For one day, I can make the impossible a possibility. Oh, and I have way cooler profile pictures than muggles (non-geeks),” says Van Rooyen.
The defining factor is celebrating the love of your favorite character – they say imitation is the sincerest and sweetest form of flattery.

The Geek Will Inherit The Earth

Outspoken and fearless. Those are the principal character traits that define Charlize Theron, the South African amazon whose brazen attitude towards life is every bit a match for her striking beauty. The Oscar-winning (for Monster) actress is an independent woman who could take on any man, and tends to swear like one, too.
Directors and co-stars have described the 39-year-old Theron as a “ballsy” woman but one with enormous talent and sensitivity as anyone who would have seen her performances in films like The Burning Plane or Young Adult would attest.
Theron is about to achieve another career milestone with Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller’s retake of his own original 1979 Mad Max film and cult classic that helped propel Mel Gibson to Hollywood stardom. This time out, British actor Tom Hardy takes on the iconic role while Theron plays the female desert warrior who joins Hardy’s Max Rockatansky in an epic road war in their joint effort to cross the wasteland. For Theron, the film gave her the chance to throw herself into the kind of supercharged powerful role that suits her fiercer, feminist side.
“The original Mad Max created such a vivid world&#8230;George [Miller] really created a female character that I’ve never read anything like [before],” Theron declared with respect to her taking on the role of Imperator Furiosa.
“It’s a really challenging piece of material. Originally&#8230;I was like, ‘Uh, I’m not going to play the f*****g girl for ‘Mad Max’.’ Then I read it and I was like, ‘Oh, Mad Max, I feel sorry for you.’ [Laughs] That rarely happens&#8230;It’s two great characters. It’s not the original ‘Mad Max’. It’s the revamped ‘Mad Max’. It’s Tom Hardy, who’s incredible. So, the whole thing is just exciting, very, very exciting.”
Theron’s naturally self-confident and assertive personality explains why her boyfriend Sean Penn may well be the ideal man for her. He’s a notorious bad boy whose previous relationships with Robin Wright and Madonna were known for being as torrid as they were tumultuous.
Theron and Penn’s romance first heated up when they vacationed together in Hawaii over a year ago over New Year’s – since then they’ve been virtually inseparable, attending various awards functions and other events as a couple.
In her most serious comment regarding their relationship, Theron gushed: “It just kind of naturally happened, and before I knew it, I was in something that was making my life better – the people who really love me can see the effect it has had on me.”
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On Mad Max: Fury Road
One of the key early moments in Mad Max: Fury Road comes when Max (Hardy) and Furiosa (Theron) battle it out in the dirt before she is willing to join forces with him.
“This is not just two people standing there punching each other,” explained writer-director George Miller.
“This is a question of which one of them is going to survive&#8230;.I remember thinking [when Theron was driving the war rig back to base camp during the production and he was sitting behind her]: ‘She IS the Imperator, and if this was a real wasteland and we were at war, I’d be really happy she’s on our side.”
Added Miller: “I can’t really think of another character in cinema quite like her. I’m sure that other people might find connections, but just the way the character was conceived, and how Charlize took it on and transformed herself and played it, she did it with such authority. There have been great female action characters, but there’s just been nothing quite like this.”
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On female empowerment
Theron has long been known for her determined advocacy for women’s rights and specifically for greater opportunities for women in Hollywood. Never married, she has openly dismissed the idea of “the white dress” and is a committed spokesperson on gender and age equality. She also disdains the prevailing climate of discrimination against older women.
Declared Theron: “Women find their strength and power in their sexuality, in their sensuality within, [through] getting older and being secure within that. It’s ironic that we’ve built the beauty world around 20-year-olds, when they have no f*****g concept about wisdom, what life is about, having a few relationships below [their] belt and feeling hardships, to grow into [their] skin and feel confident within [themselves] and to feel the value of who [they] are, not because of a man or because of something like that. And I think that’s such a beautiful thing.
“That’s why I think people say women come into their prime in their 40s. And then for some reason our society just wants to go…it’s like a dead flower. It’s like we wilt for some reason. And men are like fine wines — the older they get, the better they get. It’s such a misconception, and it’s such a lost opportunity because that’s when I think women are really in the true moment of their sensuality.”
As proof of practicing what she preaches in terms of standing up to Hollywood’s patriarchal studio system, Theron recently negotiated a $10 million paycheck for her work in the upcoming film The Huntsman after last November’s Sony hack revealed that top Hollywood actresses were receiving less pay than their male co-stars.
Even veteran industry observers were shocked to learn that Jennifer Lawrence was paid less than her male costars in the Oscar-nominated American Hustle despite being arguably the hottest and highest-profile cast member.
Theron will now earn the same salary as co-star Chris Hemsworth in The Huntsman, a prequel to 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman.
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On motherhood
Theron’s personal life underwent an upheaval five years ago when she split with actor Stuart Townshend after a nine year relationship. She didn’t work for nearly three years around the time of her breakup before resuming her career with films like The Burning Plain and Young Adult. It was during that time that she adopted a four-month-old baby boy in 2012 from Kenya whom she subsequently named Jackson. Sean Penn recently filed papers to become the three-year-old boy’s adoptive father.
Stated Theron: “I’m so happy to be a mother&#8230;It’s so amazing to finally reach this point in my life and be able to enjoy this incredible experience. I’m overjoyed!”
She added: “But the thing that caught me totally unprepared was the impact and intensity of this change in my life. Being a mother has struck me at a very deep level. I mean, to hold a young child that grows slowly and then starts talking and looking at the world around him is something absolutely incredible.”
“I want to be that example for my son. I want him to grow up with a mom that he could see and look at her life with all the mistakes and with all the failures and all the flaws and say, ‘My mom lived an authentic life. That was the life she wanted to live’.”
Theron is also adamant that being a mother does not affect her screen choices:
“I don’t look at material and go, ‘This is too dark, I have a kid now’, because my interests still are my interests. That doesn’t make me a bad mother. I think that makes me a really good mother, because when I go and creatively satisfy myself and those interests, I come home satisfied. And I can be a really good mother to him because I’m happy.”
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On her powerful bond with her mother Gerda
Theron, an only child, grew up on a farm in South Africa with a father she has characterized as an abusive alcoholic. In 1991, Gerda, her mother, fatally shot him after he came home in a drunken rage and threatened to kill her and the then-15-year-old Theron. Authorities ruled the slaying was self-defense, and Gerda was never prosecuted. Theron has remained close to her mother during her time in Hollywood and has never lost sight of her mother’s courage and profound influence on her:
“She has taught me to stand up for myself and be courageous. I’m not someone who indulges in self-pity and I hate it if I ever start feeling sorry for myself. I was raised in a way that I should never allow myself to be the victim, but to take responsibility for my decisions and my actions and live as boldly as possible.”
“My mother has given me a lot of guidance on that level. She’s someone who believes in not dwelling on the past and getting on with your life. I’m trying to live on those terms. I want to live the way I want to and not think back 50 years from now why I didn’t live my life when I had the chance. You have to be willing to go through the highs and lows and keep moving forward.”
When Theron was struggling to find good acting parts in her 20s she often dealt with the perception that she was a former model (though never a particularly successful one) and too pretty and striking for most roles.
But when 2 Days in the Valley (1996) earned her immediate recognition, leading to subsequent roles in Devils’ Advocate (opposite Keanu Reeves) in 1997 and Woody Allen’s Celebrity the year after, Theron was on her way.  She credits her mother with giving her both moral and financial support to help her hang in there before her career took off.
“I may have been insecure in finding myself as a teenager, or early-20s person, but I always had a very strong sense of what I felt was inside me,” she says. “My mom always used to tell me, ‘You have a foundation, and the foundation is there because of who you are, not because of what people think you are’. And it’s the kernel of that truth, of your truth — of knowing who you are, deep down — that lets you not pay that much attention to what people perceive in you.”
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On her sense of independence
“Sean [Penn] is very close to his children. But I was not looking for a baby-sitter, I was looking for a partner. I can pay for a babysitter! [Laughs]
“I have lots of friends who wanted to get married, for whom marriage was a major milestone. It never meant anything to me, I’ve tried a different way.”
“I don’t like [sympathy] for myself. Sometimes sympathy can feel like you’re trying to kind of victimize someone. I don’t know, maybe it’s just my own [stuff] that I have to deal with, but I think that, more than anything, people just want to be understood, you know?
“I grew up in a house with an alcoholic (father). And I experienced a lot of people being overly sympathetic, and for me, sympathy and pity — there’s a very, very fine line between the two. Maybe I was being ultra-sensitive, but the way I was treated then, the way people looked at me, it made me feel weak. And I was not a fan of that feeling at all. I’m still not.
“[There’s this misconception that] I’m a dark and bitchy kind of woman. [Laughs] I’ve played dark people in the past&#8230;and I’m nothing like that although I can be a bitch if I need to be. [Laughs]
“Most directors are constantly surprised when they meet me and get a chance to hang out with me for a while. I have a reputation for having a very raw sense of humor and I kind of use that to my advantage. I’ve always used humor as a refuge and as a way of overcoming or getting past a lot of the darker, sadder things that life can throw at you.”
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On fame and happiness
“For me, fame has no value. I never read anything into it than what it is. I don’t even know what it really means&#8230;In my position, you can’t manage it all, much less being able to control the media and that sort of thing. Life is never as rational as you would like it.
“I’m well aware of those less privileged than me [Theron works for numerous African charities] and how ambitions and expectations are dashed every day in life. In my case the pressure of media attention is a small downside that I simply need to ignore. It cannot and should not in any way affect my choices. The only priority that I have is my happiness and my son.
“I don’t think that life is that happy in general. It’s always going to be a struggle and you have to hang on to those moments where the world seems wonderful rather than grim. And even when things look bad, you shouldn’t let yourself get caught up in that because it won’t help you deal with things. You need to be able to pick yourself up off the floor and get on with things. That’s the attitude and life philosophy I’ve picked up from my mother.
“I’m not sure that happiness is [the] goal. It’s not the kind of state of being that you can necessarily control. You try to do the things in life which please you and the best you can hope for is that you’re going to be happy on some general level. Life takes you in many different directions and not all of them are going to be good. You’re going to have to deal with very tough times and sad moments because that’s just inevitable and life is like that.  You have to find the strength and determination to move past the difficult times and stay positive so that you can enjoy all the good moments. I’m feeling good about things now and I’m open and looking forward to the future.”

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