Lead actress Vanessa Ntlapo as Bee Sondlo. Photo: Community Media Trust
12 February 2016
A new “action-packed” drama series produced by Cape Town based production company, Community Media Trust, will be aired for the first time on SABC1 tonight.
Community Media Trust is the non-profit company that owns GroundUp.
The series called JAB follows the “coming-of-age” story of Bee Sondlo, a 19-year-old female boxer from Langa. Despite financial and social hurdles, Sondlo is determined to make it in the world of competitive women’s boxing.
The series, directed by Lucilla Blankenberg and screenwritten by Paul Ian Johnson, aims at highlighting the plight of young female competitive boxers in South Africa.
The first of 13 episodes will be aired at 8:30pm on Friday.
“I’ve wanted to tell this story for years,” said Blankenberg, who herself trained in kickboxing. “I found myself training and competing with kickboxers and boxers in a sport dominated by men dotted with a few women here and there.”
The cast includes Vanessa Ntlapo as Bee Sondlo, Mzu Ntantiso, Faniswa Yisa, Zingi Mtuzula and Lemogang Tsipa.
The boxing sequences were choreographed for the series by professional female boxing champion Rushda Mallick.
JAB is the production company’s second television series. The first, Amaza, was broadcast in 2014, and reached an estimated 7.5 million viewers.
“Community Media Trust has been developing new talent on JAB, from actors to writers to production crew. The company also provides on the job training for young aspiring screenwriters,” the company says.
In a statement, Community Media Trust noted that while the standard of competitive women’s boxing continues to grow in South Africa, professional female boxers are still not given the same publicity and sponsorships as their male counterparts. JAB hopes to help promote this increasingly popular sport and to help foster a sense of inclusiveness in what is often a very male dominated domain.
JAB is produced by Community Media Trust which owns GroundUp.