Filmmaker Twiggy Matiwana's star is on the rise

Melville filmmaker Twiggy Matiwana has written and directed an award-winning short film, 'The Bicycle Man'. Michel Muller visited her before she left for Cannes

A young woman from Extension 4 in Joza, Rini, in Grahamstown winks at courage and gets the bus to Johannesburg. She carries a camera and a dream.

"I had to talk to my uncle," says Nontombozuko Twiggy Matiwana.

"I was doing a marketing course in PE and being miserable.

"My surrogate parents, my aunt Nancy Makile and Zolile Braveman Makile, my aunt's husband, I told them I wanted to shoot videos and play around with a camera.

"They gave me a Samsung, for family things. Like my brother going to the mountain ... weddings, funerals.

"The following year, 2005, I asked: 'Please, can I do films?'

"Films? My family, and my mom, Nombulelo Yamiso, they didn't get this films thing."

Would she survive Sin City, eGoli, the reeking ghoul? It's a long way from Grahamstown for a "shy speaker".

"My uncle said, 'When do you want to leave?' I replied: 'Tomorrow'."

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Fast-forward 12 years to March 2017 and a film Matiwana wrote and directed, The Bicycle Man, wins the Silver Stallion and the EU's Africa, Caribbean, Pacific award at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

That's biggish stuff in the movie arena.

"It's just everywhere now; two festivals in France in May, Cameroon, Belgium in June, all over ... and workshops and screenings. It's hectic."

Matiwana tinkers with her computer's keys.

"Ah, Cannes May 17 to 28," she says. A chance to sell the film.

Her desk faces a glass front door with deep windows on its sides. They gasp for light on a mean grey morning. This is where she writes scripts for "four to five hours a day".

She lives in Melville, Johannesburg, with her spouse, Sindiswa Sindi Magidla, from Matatiele, Eastern Cape.

It's a cosy rented apartment in a weathered mansion peeling in a rambling garden, a hidden sanctuary close to the Melville strip. A fruit bowl brightens the kitchen counter.

"I'll make my special coffee," says Matiwana. She lisps a bit, as if her tongue tastes the talk.

Her first impression of Joburg was, "Right, things are different around here. I lived with lots of people and myself, I was sleeping on the floor. My family said they were coming to fetch me!"

In 2006 she secured an internship at MultiChoice.

"I wanted to do writing. Anyway, I learnt as much as possible in grips and six months down the line I was done.

"Next, Penguin [Films] - I begged them - it was the first time I was part of a big production, trainee assistant director."

Reticent, circumspect Twiggy found her voice.

"I was a girl, very tiny and very shy. I was seeing people I'd had a crush on ... I showed them flames. I was outside controlling crew and extras. I loved it.

"I became loud. I was part of Penguin Films for the next four years."

Being "surrounded by strong females, strong directors and actors, strong powerful black women, actually all women in general", inspired Matiwana.

"I just knew it. This is what I want. This is what I want to be part of."

She taps the keyboard again. Angers this time, and Cinemas d'Afrique from May 16 to 21.

The Bicycle Man, about a gardener who has breast cancer, is in line for an award there, too.

She laughs.

"Years ago I told my family 'I know most of you don't understand what I'm doing. But you need to give me this chance'."

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My curiosity pinches me.

Where's Sindiswa? I ask.

"Isn't it Twiggy's moment?" says a voice from the bathroom.

"Babe, my moment is your moment. You know that."

They - the beautiful couple on social media - got back the previous night from a gratitude ritual in Grahamstown. Before that Matiwana was filming in KwaZulu-Natal.

"Thank God for my wife," says Matiwana. "She knows how to keep me calm."

Magidla emerges from a cloud of steam.

"I just say 'calm down. It's not the end of the world'," she says.

The couple met on the set of Skeem Saam in 2011.

"After three years I'm like, 'When you going to marry me? If we wait for money we'll never do it.' We went to home affairs."

It's not been easy since The Bicycle Man rode into their lives in 2014, the year of their nuptials.

They've survived on bowls of popcorn and sometimes the film has contributed to "the fragile state of our relationship".

Matiwana wears white bone Tibetan beads, a gift from her spouse.

Magidla touches them. "They're focus-aligned-more-in-control-calm-calming beads."

Matiwana smiles.

"I've been trying to think, 'Where did this whole passion start?'."

Laughs. "Not us this time, Pum-Pum.

"Yes, my late cousin's brother gave me 30c for entry to the bioscope in Joza, Rini, in the Noluthando Hall.

"That's where I learnt that a story has a beginning, middle and an end.

"Everything has its beginning and end.

"And I'm hoping that when they show The Bicycle Man at the Grahamstown festival that it's the last time I'll have to explain to my family. If they don't understand now, they'll never understand."

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QUICK Q&A WITH MATIWANA

What attributes of The Bicycle Man make it unique, a winner?

The Youth Filmmaker project produced by Natives At Large had great access to prominent filmmakers who've worked in the industry for years. I must say, we were in good hands. I was given a full eight months of milking the story into a great script.

The use of symbolism is shown in the film and I had to make sure that everything is connected, from my great cast to use of sound and production design.

Everything was well planned. I choreographed all my camera angles/shots to keep the restrictive spaces visually interesting; I value the importance of framing. I think what made the film unique is its simplicity.

When you finished The Bicycle Man project, did you feel you'd achieved what you'd set out to achieve?

Yes, I wrote, shot and finished the project. That's an achievement on its own.

Your favourite directors and influences?

Abderrahmane Sissako for simplicity, Woody Allen for the charm in his writing, Jim Jarmusch for camera composition and Roman Polanski's use of symbolism.

How does it feel to be on the global stage?

It's too amazing. I want to make amazing films.

Something we don't know about you?

My late father, Sonwabo Nyoka, was a champion boxer in Grahamstown.

PS: how did you make your special coffee?

It's a secret ... shhh.