Mitchells Plain’s Mark Matroos who went from door-to-door selling caps and sunglasses to make a living is on his way to releasing his debut movie called Meisie Vannie Lavis.
The movie was shot in Bishop Lavis with Matroos looking to educate youth about the dangers of substance abuse, gangsterism and gender-based violence.
“I’m passionate about making music and decided to go into the music industry and also make music videos,” said Matroos.
“I soon realised that it was not as glamorous as it looked and was it was hard work. From there, my goal was to make a local movie and that’s how I came up with Meisie Vannie Lavis.
“The movie is about a girl who grew up in a godly home, raised by a single mother and she did not go out a lot, she was always at home.
“She then meets Menta, who had a bad influence on her and she got mixed up with the wrong people,” he said.
Matroos said that while they shot the kidnapping scene, members of the community came running outside trying to stop the kidnapping from happening as they did not know a movie was being shot.
“I didn’t have any big fancy equipment and we shot it gorilla style, so it was on the move and nobody knew we were shooting,” said Matroos.
“When we shot the kidnapping scene, the children who were playing outside saw it and screamed at their parents to come out and help.
“Their neighbors all came running outside and the one mom even opened up their front gate for their dog to run out and attack us. We had to react quickly and told them we were busy shooting a movie,” he added.
Meisie Vannie Lavis will be screened December 1 at the Portlands Indoor centre, for more information, contact Mark on 071 474 3144.
This is part of a series of videos produced for the SAPA+ #Inform campaign.