The death of “the soul of South African narration” stimulates sorrow and anger

The death of a much appreciated star is normally followed by a wave of sorrow, but in South Africa, the loss of last week of the 75 -year -old actress, Nandi Nyembe, also came with a wave of anger.

People have been afflicted in the past few months of her life, a manly sick woman has been reduced to appearing on attractive videos for financial assistance.

Sitting in a wheelchair, with thin and gray hair, wearing a loose t-shirt and pajamas pants in fleece, she said that she did not like people who felt mercy on her, but she needed money to cover the bases. Her biggest plea was for more work so that she could support herself.

It was far from his more famous appearances on the screen.

As a head in some major television series in recent decades, her face has been radiated in the South African houses and has become a familiar weekly presence.

Respectfully known as Mam’Nandi, his death, for some, wanted to lose a close relative.

A tribute released jointly by his family and the government welcomed him as “the very soul of the South African narration”.

She was “much more than an actress” but also a teacher and guide who “broke the barriers” and “inspired by young actors in the villages and the cantons to dream beyond their situation”.

Given this status, the way she appeared late in life was all the more shocking.

His death, after a long illness, rekindled the debate on the lack of support at the disposal of South African artists who are unable to work and have highlighted the struggle that many are confronted behind the scenes.

After a first appearance, actors from South Africa do not receive any fees for the subsequent programs of their work.

They are used as freelancers and, therefore, they do not obtain any of the possible advantages – such as pension and health coverage – which may be available for regular employees.

This means that “each actor active in this country at the moment is on an inevitable path to where Mam’Nandi was,” the BBC Devnarain told BBC.

He said it was painful to see Nyembe’s difficulties in these final videos, knowing that “it was not going to end well”.

“Because there is no charity in the world that will solve the structural problems of the creative sector.”

Actor himself, Devnarain affected himself affectionately from the years of glory of Nyembe, saying how “welcoming and warm” she had been as a young artist.

“In the presence of Mam’Nandi, you knew that you were in the presence of performance royalty.”

Nyembe was born in 1950 in Kliptown, the oldest part of Soweto – the black canton just outside Johannesburg. Her mother was an actress and a rowdy dancer and her father was a boxer, according to the spaces of online publication.

Her family moved a lot during her childhood and, therefore, she grew up with “different and diverse people,” she said.

Her acting career began in the 1970s at the height of the Apartheid era, when the state legally applied racial segregation.

With limited opportunities for blacks, Nyembe was mainly thrown into the role of a maid each time she auditioned. She told the South African magazine Bona in 2017: “Inequality and oppression made me angry and I started to participate in the protest theater.”

Despite this drop, she was then going to make her mark, first in theater, then in various television and films programs in the 1990s.

Among the television roles for which she was best known was the recurring character of a HIV -positive nurse in the drama of Soul City hospital. It took place from 1994 – the year of the first democratic elections in South Africa and at a time when people had trouble talking about HIV / AIDS, which quickly became a national crisis.

In another popular series, Yizo Yizo, she played a stimulating mother in a show that captured the raw realities of life in a South African canton.

On the big screen, she captivated the public with her role as Sangoma, or traditional healer, in the South African film nominated for 2004 Oscars yesterday.

“She was extremely passionate about her work … This is what she experienced outside her family,” said her grandson, Jabulani Nyembe.

She “always sought to improve her profession” and “always wanted to do better”, but at the same time “her career was also (by the way) to build other actors and actresses through her work”.

Beyond the action, he remembers him as someone always willing to help others in his community and as “the pillar of the family” and their “dynamic thorn”.

He approached the viral video, admitting that Nyembe had faced challenges towards the end of his life, before adding that the family helped her as much as possible.

The actor’s guild saga was at the forefront of the legal change thrust to prevent similar situations.

According to Devnain, two bills were presented in Parliament in 2017 to give the actors “the right to win fees for the first time in South African history”.

“This is why they are essential to the survival of the sector,” he said.

After years of back and forth, they finally found themselves on the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa for his signature in 2024.

But he has since referred the two bills to the Constitutional Court, fearing that they could affect the elements inscribed in the Constitution by imposing retrospective restrictions on copyright.

This left the actors trapped in the limbo.

“Any actor who is on cinema or television must understand that as long as you continue to work, you will eventually overcome your money,” said Devnarain.

“The government failed the entire sector and they failed in Mam’Nandi.”

During a commemorative service in Johannesburg on Thursday, actress Lerato Mvelase also castigated the government for having offered a little more “lullaby” to the actors.

“How long should we hear the same speeches (commemorative services)? How long should we have the same commitments on the need for political structures that will protect us as an actor?” She asked.

But the Minister of Culture Gayton McKenzie, who rarely stands out from a fight, retaliated to criticism, saying that he had personally responded to the Nyembe fate when she was alive and that the government helped the family and paid for the funeral on Saturday.

“We are working day and night to change the fate of creatives, soon they would have funeral coverage, hospital care and a payment of policies for their children. We really care and we are responsible for changing their lives,” he wrote on Facebook.

The changes now, of course, are too late for Nyembe.

At the memorial, the famous filmmaker Angus Gibson addressed this, describing how she would ask him for work during difficult moments.

“As a great actor as it was, that didn’t protect her from a difficult world,” he said.