Exactly a year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump referred to Lesotho as an African nation that “nobody has ever heard of,” but it’s precisely in this ruggedly beautiful mountain kingdom that Carl Houston Mc Millan set and made his independent film “Kabelo.”
The Sesotho-language feature, directed by Mc Millan, who co-wrote it with his wife Tara Desormeaux, is having its premiere this week at the 8th Joburg Film Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a rare Lesotho film, its part of the festival’s official in-competition selection this year.
“Kabelo” evolved from a 2017-short titled “Sir and Kabelo (Two Shepherds)” and set in the mountains of Lesotho, stars award-winning actor Warren Masemola and Lebohang Ntsane.
Described as an adventure-drama, “Kabelo,” produced under the banner of Mc Millan and Pheelo “PJ” Makosholo’s Kabelo Films, the Lesotho-caper, with executive producers Donald Houston Mc Millan, Dylan Voogt and Marcelle du Toit, is now looking for distribution. The film explores themes of migration, identity and the search for freedom.
The story follows a young shepherd named Kabelo (Ntsane), desperate to escape his isolated rural village life and who then forms a precarious bond with a South African fugitive called “Master” (Masemola), who is promising the young man a new life in Johannesburg.
The 38-year-old Mc Millan, who grew up in Lesotho, then went to film school in Cape Town and now lives and works in Johannesburg, set up his own production company with the intent to help get a bigger film industry going in the “Roof of Africa,” since, as he tells Variety, “Lesotho is so small.”
“Lesotho is very close to me. I love rural spaces. I feel very inspired by Lesotho. I love nature, the mountains. I love being in the mountains. I feel more grounded there,” he says. “I think because I grew up there and spent a lot of time in Lesotho’s mountains, the story came about quite organically and I’ve been interested in the shepherd’s lifestyle for a long time.”
“I remember when I was in film school in Cape Town and telling people ‘I’m from Lesotho.’ They would find it strange – this white guy saying he’s from Lesotho. And I would take friends, do hiking trips in the mountains and once during the winter, we were doing this two-day hiking trip and got stuck in the snow.”
“We stayed the night around the fire with some shepherds – quite the crazy adventure in a totally different world. From this, I gained a respect for the shepherds, their hardiness, their resilience,” Mc Millan says. “I found that they didn’t really get the respect they deserved.”
A short film followed of just two characters sitting and having a conversation. It was so well received that Mc Millan started to pen a feature.
“I wrote this with my wife over two years. I thought this is a unique story, from a commercial perspective. And no one has told a story in Lesotho. With an independent, you can also really spend your time. We spent months rehearsing and really making sure that the script was working. I knew who, actor-wise, when I was writing it, were good, who I’ve worked with before and who would suit it.”
“No one asked for this film,” he says.
“It’s not commissioned. We are trying to get it to a place like Canal+’s MultiChoice because I think that a South African audience and a global audience would really love seeing Kabelo’s story.”
“The story is very specific to Lesotho and South Africans and the world wants to know of stories happening in Lesotho. We don’t get any films from Lesotho.”
Getting “Kabelo” on screen wasn’t a challenge in the normal sense, Mc Millan explains, noting that “you have freedom to do it how you want to do it.”
“You don’t have a commissioning editor saying ‘We should use this actor because they’ve got a particular clout or following.’ You get to choose which actors are right for the role and what works for the story.”
“The real challenge as an independent is coming now, with will it be sold? And it’s a big test. Like, will this be acquired and be seen by people in Lesotho, South Africa and the world?”
His dream, he says, is “to be able to afford the time to be able to write and make films that aren’t commercial.”
“I find a lot of content easily gets very cheesy, very on the nose. When you watch a lot of content and movies or South African films, you think: Would I say that in the scene? Would the character really say that? It doesn’t feel authentic.”
“It’s a privilege to make films and to tell stories, so I’m being authentic to myself when I ask: What film would I like to write? What film would I like to see? So it’s about being authentic in what interests me as a filmmaker. Doing an independent film is amazing because you get to make the film you would like to see. And that’s basically what I did with ‘Kabelo.’”
It’s however not a slow, drawn-out, high-culture feature.
“I didn’t want it to be a very slow arthouse film,” he says. “That’s boring. I have a very short attention span myself and I like things to be a bit pacey, but not cheesy.”
Filmed over 24 days in Lesotho’s mountains, Mc Millan says lensing was “super tough in Lesotho, especially during winter, but we used locations and crew we’ve worked with before, and utilized all of our social capital and knowledge of the mountains.”
A mesmerizing cave scene high in the mountains delivers several stunning visuals.
“That’s what Lesotho has – beautiful open landscapes. We didn’t want drone shots flying around. We wanted the viewer to feel the weight of them and that Kabelo as a character is stuck in the mountains and that cave location.”
“I’ve spent so much time in the mountains and hiking and riding motorbikes and doing film projects that I know so many beautiful spots. And that cave location was very difficult to access. We had to park the cars in the village on the top, walk down into the valley for half an hour. Then you had the cave that wasn’t on ground level. So I rigged a rope for the crew to climb up into the cave.”
Then Mc Millan decided to add night scenes, done from inside the sandstone cave, as well.
“So it’s sort of a risk that you take as an indie filmmaker,” he says. “It is risky. You wouldn’t do that with a big commercial project. But we were working with a small crew and that’s something you can accomplish with a smaller crew and getting access.”
“We spoke to the chiefs of the village before the time, we employed some people from the village who helped carry the gear by hand through the valley and it took a lot of prep work.”
Prominent Basotho musician and shepherd Morena Leraba collaborated on “Kabelo.”
Mc Millan says, “As a finished feature, ‘Kabelo’ looks really beautiful as a postcard for Lesotho. I feel it’s a showcase of Basotho talent. We were using, except for Warren Masemola, a 100% cast from Lesotho. Everyone is Sesotho-speaking, and I’m proud of that.”
“I want Basotho to be proud of this film, and of the quality. Often, globally with foreign language films, it feels like poorer quality films. ‘Kabelo’ is a Sesotho film of high quality that looks beautiful.”
