Cape Town – amaXhosa king Zwelonke Sigcaw is seeking to halt the distribution of a film depicting a homosexual relationship during the traditional amaXhosa manhood initiations, saying there are limits to the extent customs can be exposed, his lawyer said.
Inxeba (the wound) tells the story of Xolani, a closeted gay factory worker in Queenstown, who served as a caregiver for initiates and subsequently has a relationship with another caregiver.
It opened at the Durban Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on Friday.
Sigcawu wants to talk to the film producers “amicably” before approaching the courts to avoid its distribution, the king’s lawyer Matthew Mpahlwa told News24.
The king also plans to file a formal complaint with the Film and Publications Board (FPB).
“His subjects are complaining. He is the custodian of custom and what is being dealt [with] in the film is custom. It is on those grounds that he would ... be an interested party,” Mpahlwa said.
“There’s a lot of panic among the amaXhosa people who have undertaken the rituals, some of the men mostly and they called on the kingdom of the amaXhosa to intervene.”
It opened at the Durban Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on Friday.
Sigcawu wants to talk to the film producers “amicably” before approaching the courts to avoid its distribution, the king’s lawyer Matthew Mpahlwa told News24.
The king also plans to file a formal complaint with the Film and Publications Board (FPB).
“His subjects are complaining. He is the custodian of custom and what is being dealt [with] in the film is custom. It is on those grounds that he would ... be an interested party,” Mpahlwa said.
“There’s a lot of panic among the amaXhosa people who have undertaken the rituals, some of the men mostly and they called on the kingdom of the amaXhosa to intervene.”
He said the king had however not yet seen the film.
“He has been seeing [the] trailers and people are just shocked."There is an extent [to] which freedom of expression can go... there are limits [to] which customs... can be exposed."
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