13 October 2026 · Reporting checked against the primary and independent sources below.
A different language for a familiar pressure
A 17-year-old boy leaves his rural home for a township in Durban and finds that the qualities that make him himself are treated as weaknesses. That is the premise of Tomasi, an experimental musical drama written and directed by AFDA student filmmaker Portia Ncwane. The film follows grief, identity and the rules of masculinity through music, movement, symbolism and dreamlike images.
It is a particularly fitting subject for an experimental film. The pressure to be emotionally invulnerable is not always expressed in a single argument; it can live in gestures, silence and the way a person moves through a room. The film’s announced use of dance and sound offers a way to make those less visible pressures legible without reducing them to a lecture.
From a student project to festival conversation
AFDA reported on 12 October that Tomasi screened at the 12th Botho Heritage Festival on 23 September at the Wushwini Pan African Centre, and again on 8 October at the International Township TV and Film Festival, where it was selected among South African short films. Ncwane also moderated a screening conversation at Botho and took part in a discussion on women in the film business at the township film festival.
The film was produced by Ncwane and Zamathembu Mthembu. AFDA says the writer-director has additionally been selected for festival attendance in Hollywood, although the trip remains uncertain because of a possible scheduling conflict with the school’s graduation festival. That is not the same as a confirmed international screening or an award, and it should not be reported as one.
Why emerging-film platforms matter
Student films rarely arrive with the marketing budgets of feature releases. Festivals provide something more valuable than an isolated online upload: an audience willing to sit with an unfamiliar form and discuss what it is trying to say. For a story about emotional restriction, the chance to hear people talk afterwards is part of its cultural significance.
There is also an industry dimension. When young filmmakers choose experimental musical storytelling over a conventional realist drama, they expand the range of what South African screen work can look and sound like. That does not guarantee a film succeeds artistically; viewers still have to judge the work itself. But it is precisely why a developing film culture needs room for risk.
What we know — and what we do not
The film’s synopsis and screening history are drawn from AFDA’s announcement, not an independent CREATIVE KONG viewing. This is a reported profile of the project, not a firsthand review. Further festival outcomes, awards or release plans have not been confirmed.
