Josephine, a young Xhosa single mother toils away as a nurse while taking care of her fragile 10-year-old son, Joseph. They lead a simple life and share a powerful mother-son bond, living in the semi-rural town of Port St Johns, South Africa. But Josephine’s life is abruptly torn apart when Joseph drowns while on a school trip, his body is never found, and Josephine never truly recovers. After Fundiswa, a colleague reveals visions of Joseph alive; Josephine desperate for closure consults a traditional healer who performs a ritual to bring him back. Startling supernatural events begin to unfold, events that Josephine is unable to control. With the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape as a backdrop, THE DROWNING is spine-chilling story of mother who is forced to confront the past by coming to terms with the reality of the present.
I've always been fascinated by the horror genre and I want to write a film that not only employs all the rules of the genre successfully but also allows me to put an entirely new spin on it.
I want to explore the spaces between what we know and what we feel, there is a chilling sense of paranoia and fatigue that permeates throughout the tale and that I wish to deconstruct on screen. I also want to explore the representations of traditional and cultural symbols of Xhosa and African spiritualism and its place in modern-day society and cinema.
GENRE: Psychological Horror
RUNNING TIME: 90 Minutes
AUDIENCE: 16 – 35
PROJECT STATUS:
In development; looking for an Executive Producer, development and production funding