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HEIRU

By Kgodumo Amun MOHLALA

NATIONAL FILM & VIDEO FOUNDATION OF SOUTH AFRICA (NFVF) - as PROMO

Thriller - Completed 2015

‘Each One Teach One’

- Year of production
- 2015
- Genres
- Thriller
- Countries
- SOUTH AFRICA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Kgodumo Amun MOHLALA
- Writer(s)
- Kgodumo Amun MOHLALA
- Cast
- Adrian STEYN, Tiaan KRUGER, Siyabonga MAKHUBO
- Producer(s)
- Ndiyathemba MODIBEDI
- Synopsis
- HEIRU is a 21 year old young coloured boy, who is a Fine Arts student in his 1st year at varsity, biologically born from white parents who gave him up for adoption when the year was still 1992, pre-apartheid after they couldn’t understand how genetically possible it was. After his adoptive mother tells him the truth after finishing matric, he gets lost about his identity and becomes easily influenced by his skhothane friend, JOHNNY who takes him to a party to get drunk when Heiru comes back from the last day of the semester at varsity. Heiru’s frustrations heighten up when his adoptive mother confronts him about his behaviour ever since he got told he was given up for adoption. When Heiru consoles in his artwork trying to figure out his insanity rising, he doesn’t understand his identity and why he was born coloured out of white parents, he sees a Spanish bull fighting channel on TV that motivates him to try and exhibit his favourite Spanish bull fighting painting along with his other paintings at a museum he likes going to as a hobby.
  On his way to the museum, Johnny tries to convince him to go to another party, when Heiru refuses, Johnny teasingly accuses him of having white people tendencies. When Heiru punches Johnny in the stomach for that remark, he realizes he might be getting more and more insane. The security guard at the museum tells Heiru that the place is under new management, and when Heiru tries to go inside as normal, he is stopped by SLAVI, the new white curator at the museum who makes him pay to go inside. After Heiru eventually pays, he sees a beautiful white, MAYA, looking at a painting of ‘Genetic DNA disorder’. He joins Maya and tries talking to her but she stays quiet all the time. Heiru get surprised when the painting starts moving a bit, and when he looks around Maya has disappeared, he picks up a card that has the head of the 'third eyed Horus' on it, and looks at it. He then sees a door that seems to be moving and calling him. When he tries going to the door, Slavi stops him and immediately, rudely tells him to leave the premises. Feeling shameful, he goes to a park and contemplates on what just happened. Getting more and more irritated at how Slavi chased him away, he sneaks back into the museum, straight to the door, when he tries opening the door several times, he sees Slavi coming out of his office with two masks and paintings, he gives up and the door opens by itself.
  Heiru walks through a hallway of genetic paintings, some of which have the name ‘Heiru Lanzo Martinez II’ which he doesn’t understand. RASHID who happens to know everything about Heiru taps him from the back introducing him to the world he has just stumbled into. They go through a laboratory that has a Genecist that tells them about the Chinese peoples’ DNA having direct correlation to African ancestors, then a room with an overhead projector with two white university scholars that talk about ancient Egypt, and black Kings of the universe in pre-historic times. With all this information, when Heiru looks around, Rashid has disappeared, he now goes through dark caves and hallways, encountering homosapians, the Lucy – ‘Dinknesh’ ape and African writings on the walls. When he enters a room with deeper revealings, Slavi wearing a white mask and gloves grabs and blind folds him in a dark room. Slavi and another man with a white mask, whisper harsh words of discouragement to
  black people. Hearing all these words, Heiru gets overwhelmed screaming to get free until he wakes up in another room, taking off his blind fold seeing a black man wearing a ku klux klan balaclava trying to give him a bible looking like book, he then collapses before standing up to reach out to take it.
  Rashid stands in front of Heiru waking him up helping him to stand up, but Heiru is tired and angry at the confusion he is encountering showing signs of giving up and not caring anymore, he fights with Rashid about who cares about history and past events, what use is it to him or anyone. Rashid takes him to an Ethiopian map painting that moves towards Heiru. Next to an Ethiopian monument, a wise Ethiopian man takes out a heavy old looking like book that entails pre-historic events and they talk about humankind evolution, race, religion, believes, choices, consequences, freedom of the mind, and making unconscious, conscious. The man gives Heiru a black Africa beaded neck piece and holds his head and looks into his eyes reminding him of his course to ‘Each One Teach One’. Heiru wakes up in the museum’s toilet cubicles and the door has writings on it, some of which are the same as what the two white masked men were whispering to him.
  When he leaves the museum, he bumps into Johnny who has been looking for him and realizes Slavi is following him outside. Heiru sees a Rastafarian man who looks like Rashid coming to him, talking about hate and love to him, but Johnny sees no one in front of them. When Heiru and Slavi exchange looks of hate at each other, an Afrikaner man asks Heiru for directions to the museum in Sepedi, and a Black man asks Slavi for the owner of the museum in Afrikaans. Heiru looks around, and sees a group of black and white kids’ break dancing and Maya is amongst the group looking at him with a smile. An Indian guy at a bench listens to African drum music, and a Nigerian guy walking with headphones on listens to Indian music. A young boy passing by the park looks at the break dancing group with eyes of hate and bumps into Heiru, grabbing Heiru’s Africa neck piece twisting it and asks him why the Africa is twisted and facing the other way round. He stays astonished when Heiru tells him it is up to him to change it.
  END.
  [TEXT]: "We are not makers of history, We are made by History" - Martin Luther King, 1963