Executive creative director and film producer, Mandla N, has ascended the industry ranks and now is funding his own movies and then licenses them to broadcasters.
Mandla N just licensed two projects. A movie, Mr Easy Loo, and a drama series, Mabaso Family Reunion. Both of these projects will premiere in November on Netflix.
Ownership of creative work
“Black Brain Pictures owns these two projects. We licensed them to Netflix. Instead of selling these projects to Netflix, we decided to have a licensing agreement with them. This means we have full ownership of these projects. After two or three years, the license will expire. We can renew the licence or take these projects back and license them to another broadcaster,” explained Mandla N.
“This is the year of ownership. And as Black Brain, we are moving away from a model that seeks to take and own our hard work. Our main focus right now is to licence our work.
“This gives us freedom to do whatever we want to do with our projects. It gives us full control of the product from the start to finish. This means we can resell the same movie or drama over and over again. We can even translate our projects and take them abroad,” said Mandla N.
Selling own work is a disadvantage
He said that they have been making projects for everybody except themselves.
“The painful thing is that once you sell a movie or drama series to a broadcaster, you lose all the rights. And you no longer have a say in it. The broadcaster can do whatever they want to do with it. Including reselling and repeating it on screen. As the creator, you get nothing, because you sold it,” he continued.
The cast members for Mabaso Family Reunion include Bonko Khoza, Jerry Mofokeng and Natasha Thahane. Also Lerato Mvelase, to name a few. He described the drama series as a dark comedy.
“It’s about siblings who lost their mother. On the day of the funeral, they receive a box. And this box has a surprise that changes their lives forever. For this project, we have new faces but they are behind the cameras,” said Mandla N.
