Linda Mvusi

Linda Mvusi (* around 1955 in Bloemfontein ) is a South African architect and former actress . She became famous for her first and so far only film role in Chris Menges ' award-winning feature film Zwei Welten (1988).

Life

Mvusi was born in the province of Free State and grew up in the former Northern Rhodesia (today's Zambia ), Ghana and Kenya . She trained as an architect and pursued this profession in Harare , the capital of Zimbabwe . At a time of transition, she was approached by the local office of the African National Congress (ANC) searching for an actress for Chris Menges ' $ 5 million film production Two Worlds , which was filmed in Bulawayo , southwest Zimbabwe. The apartheid drama is based on a true story and is the film adaptation of a script by South African Shawn Slovo , daughter of the two anti-apartheid activists Ruth First and Joe Slovo . Two worlds is settled in the 1960s, in the white enclave of Johannesburg . The focus is on 13-year-old white Molly (played by Jodhi May ), whose father has to flee into exile as an opponent of the South African apartheid regime. The girl then tries to win the affection of her mother ( Barbara Hershey ), who, however, continues her husband's work alone and meets her daughter lovelessly.

Although Mvusi, like the young Briton Jodhi May, had no acting experience, she was given the role of the black housekeeper Elsie, who takes care of the child. In preparation for the role, she met numerous women she knew who worked as housekeepers. Before she even appeared in the film, she had feared that outsiders would stage Two Worlds for a foreign audience with foreign money and that Africans would not be able to tell their own story. Menges impressed her with the fact that he won local contemporary witnesses for the drama ensemble. Even the growing fear on the film set that Elsie's parallel narrative thread, who is the sister of a political activist (played by Albee Lesotho ), could be pushed into the background by that of Hershey and May, was not fulfilled. “... when I saw him (the movie) on the big screen, I thought, 'We didn't lose the fight'. Chris (Menges) is a man so rich in his experiences that he cannot be influenced at all. This kind of collaboration made it possible to bring some of the complex reality of culture into the film, ” says Mvusi.

Mvusi's acting performance was rewarded at the premiere of Zwei Welten at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988 , where the South African received the award for the best actress of the film festival together with Barbara Hershey and Jodhi May . She was the first African and first black actress to win the award.

In the United States , Newsweek rated Mvusis Elsie as "surprisingly good," but for the South African Two Worlds should mean the only appearance in a feature film. She returned to her old job as an architect and now has her own office in Johannesburg. In 2004 she was honored with the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA) award for her work on the construction of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg . In 2004, she named rural development as longer-term goals. "Our job is to make freedom tangible within a common prosperity," says Mvusi.

Filmography

• 1988: Two Worlds ( A World Apart )

Awards

• 1988: Actor Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for Two Worlds

Web links

• Linda Mvusi in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Made, Patricia A .: Zimbabwe: Flirtation With Acting Ends With An Award . IPS-Inter Press Service, June 23, 1988, Harare
2. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Henron, Kim: Telling Stores With Light . In: The New York Times , Aug. 21, 1988, Section 6; P. 32, Column 1, Magazine Desk
3. ↑ cf. Ansen, David: Home Sweet Home . In: Newsweek, July 18, 1988, United States Edition, The Arts, Movies, p. 56
4. ↑ cf. Project "Fast Forward Johannesburg" at berlin.de
5. ↑ cf. Convention 2004 ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at saia.org.za (accessed on March 28, 2010) 
6. ↑ cf. 50 women to watch in 2004 at thestar.co.za, January 17, 2004 (accessed March 30, 2010)