Author Angela Makholwa-Moabelo has made a great leap of faith by adapting her best-seller novel ‘Red Ink’ into an eight-part Showmax Original series that launched on February 12.
When her first book ‘Red Ink’ was published in 2007, it featured journalist Lucy Khambule, who later became a publicist, being approached by a serial killer who is serving a jail sentence to share his narrative.
The series features a star-studded list of local actors, such as SAFTA nominee Nqobile Nunu Khumalo (Nqobile, The Herd) playing Lucy and SAFTA winner Bonko Khoza (Mqhele in The Wife) as The Butcher.
The author speaks candidly about her experience of breaking into new terrain in her role as executive producer.
“’Red Ink’ questions why South Africa is one of the most violent societies in the world. We were the murder capital for years and years, which is certainly a dubious honour that’s not comfortable to claim. The fact that this kind of violence is inflicted upon the most vulnerable among us — women and children — is something we really need to unpack. We don’t confront that, and fiction is the most liberating way of opening up that discussion.
“Why is our society like this? Why do we breed people like that? Is there something that can be done in the way that we run our small family units, just from that nuclear family base? Are there things we could do differently? Are there ways we can raise our children, especially boys, differently? So that we’re not still having the same conversation about why we’re so violent 20 years from now.’’
Asked what message she would give her readers who will watch the series, she says: “I would ask for grace and understanding from my readers. Having been part of the process, I can see why certain things work from a literary point of view, but from an audiovisual point of view, they don’t quite hit the mark because the mediums of communication are different.’’
She says that, as a writer, she was committed to trying to stay as true to the storyline as possible.
“That’s what I fought for. But even when I didn’t win a specific point, I let it go only if I thought it would be for the good of the show. So if we diverge from the book, it’s because we’re trying to make it more visually interesting. Ultimately, I want a show that will be gripping, that will be interesting, and that will be engaging.”
The Star
anita.nkonki@inl.co.za