Homegrown Box Appeal

Diane Coetzer looks at one of the country's exciting new channels and what it has to offer

Quietly and without much fanfare, Mzansi Magic has snuck onto DStv and it's delivering a potent punch of homegrown, (mostly) Afrocentric television content.

Tune in to channel 107 just about any time and you're likely to be snagged into something unexpected: a feature on African cinema's founding father, Ousmane Sembene, or Not a Bad Girl - a documentary on the iconoclastic Brenda Fassie that has you gripped, especially in the scenes with Brenda's (then) young son, Bongani (who declares he wants to be a "policeman") and her producer Sello "Chicco" Twala.

Twala himself is a big driver of content on Mzansi Magic through his low-budget, straight-to-DVD films that are now getting a television platform. The music-producer-turned-filmmaker's "bubblegum" flicks have been a smash hit in the townships, making a star of the hapless character, Madluphutu, in the likes of My Shit Father and My Lotto Ticket and Dr Phutu & The Shangaan Tree. (Incidentally, Twala is the gun-toting star of Nick Broomfield's fascinating but largely unseen 1992 documentary Too White For Me, which I'm hoping will turn up on Mzansi Magic before too long).

But it's not all quick-draw laughs in the channel's movie fare. Hard-hitting features like God Grew Tired of Us, about the "Lost Boys of Sudan"; acclaimed South African feature films like Jerusalema; documentaries such as the Abdullah Ibrahim classic, A Brother With A Perfect Timing (August 17) and Darling: The Pieter Dirk Uys Story; as well as Thierry Michel's astonishing three-part film, Mobutu, King of Zaire (Mondays from August 16 to 30) are also on the schedule.

There's also a serious intent in the Mzansi Magic "Icon of the Month". Call it sentimental, but the monthly icon is a chance to capture the importance of figures like John Kani (July) and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, fittingly in women's month, August.

There are a couple of moments when you can see that the schedule is still being developed: the likes of 50 Cent: Refuse to Die puts a dent in the Mzansi part of the Magic and re-running the strangely unnerving M-Net showThe Coconuts can only be a filler. It may also take some of you a while to get into Shades of Sin, the first telenovela on DStv - its dubbing not easily evoking those clunky, early-style SAUK "Afrikaans" shows where the characters' mouths never matched the words you heard. But this tale of assumed identity and love will soon have you hooked.

But it's early days for the channel, which has promised to keep putting new briefs out for Mzansi's creative community and will, eventually, feature fewer repeats.

Already several homegrown shows are rapidly picking up a devoted following starting with Redi On Mzansi (Tuesdays at 7:30pm), which gives the rest of the country a chance to encounter Redi Direko's (pictured left) interviewing style that's loved by radio listeners of Talk Radio 702 and 567 CapeTalk.

It's also pretty cool to see some of the country's personalities clueing us into their personal music favourites on Top Ten at 10 (Wednesdays at 10pm) in a show hosted by Kaya FM's smooth-talking Thabo "T- Bose" Mokwele.

Also waiting in the wings is Msawawa - True South, a travel show with a difference that's brewed, like most of the content on this channel, right here in Mzansi.

• Mzansi Magic is available to MultiChoice subscribers on DStv Select, DStv Compact and DStv Premium.