Among Mountains, Moonlight, and Movies
One of the most uniquely satisfying moments in my life.

A waxing moon hung over the Maloti mountains of Lesotho. I walked through the village, passing clusters of thatched roof huts and at one point lifting my legs over a stone corral that kept an array of mismatched livestock. I climbed a short distance up the mountain, where I found a place to sit next to a pair of young herd boys wrapped in blankets and wearing wellington boots. They didn’t notice me. Their eyes were fixed on a flickering movie screen in the valley below them. From where we sat, the screen was tiny – about the size of a playing card – but the sound carried well through this cavernous vale, and we could hear most of the dialogue. When the film showed a scene that was shot in this very location, the remote village of Khotla Peli, there was an eruption of cheer and applause as the crowd of two hundred or so people began to recognise the stone and straw huts that defined their village. They recognised themselves too, as many of them had been cast as extras. A pair of Basotho women stood up and danced. A man on a horse playfully waved his traditional fighting stick at the screen.  Shepherds whistled loudly from distance mountain perches. The scene felt like a cross between Cinema Paradiso and National Geographic. It was one of the most uniquely satisfying moments in my life.

I was inspired to make The Forgotten Kingdom on my first trip to Africa, when I went to visit my brother who was serving as an American Peace Corps volunteer in the Kingdom of Lesotho, a small country entirely surrounded by South Africa. I was mesmerised by the landscape, culture, and mythology – which stood in complete contrast to the Africa I had imagined since I was a kid. There were no wild animals, jungles, or open savannahs. Rather, I discovered mountain villages lost in time. Mystical circumcision schools set beside waterfalls. Posses travelling long distance on horseback. And dusty towns where travellers lash their steeds to tying posts outside taverns.  More than anything, it reminded me of how the American West used to be. I decided I had to make a film here.

The scene felt like a cross between Cinema Paradiso and National Geographic. It was one of the most uniquely satisfying moments in my life.

Nearly a decade later, after a multi-year process of raising the budget (about $350,000), shooting the film (55 shoot days over a nine month period), and two-years of post-production, I found myself here in the village of Khotla Peli to deliver on a promise I had made to this particular village chief, and a dozen others as well. “If you allow us to film here, we’ll return next year and show the film to your village.” Which was precisely what we did over a two week period in March of 2014. Armed with a giant inflatable movie screen, four speakers the size of oil drums, and a finicky generator, we bumped along in a small fleet of 4-wheel drive vehicles, screening everywhere from the Soweto township outside Johannesburg to the deepest mountains in Lesotho. Since then, The Forgotten Kingdom has showed in over forty film festivals, in seventeen different countries, and has won numerous awards. Yet the most memorable screening to me will always be that cool night in that mountain village of Khotla Peli, sitting among a mesmerised audience that had never seen a film before, listening to the shepherds whistling from the mountains, and watching my own personal filmmaking journey come to a full circle.

* The Forgotten Kingdom won the Audience Award at the Cambridge Film Festival, Sarasota Film Festival, among others. It is also the winner of three African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA®). It will be released in the United Kingdom on 21 August. More screening information, and to watch the trailer, click here.