Mary Twala

Acting

Mary Twala

Born 1939-09-14 · Soweto, South Africa

Acting credits

The Dark Tower poster
5.8

A boy haunted by visions of a parallel world aids its disillusioned guardian in preventing the destruction of the nexus of universes known as the Dark Tower.

The Dark Tower

2017

Hector and the Search for Happiness poster
6.7

Hector is a quirky psychiatrist who has become increasingly tired of his humdrum life. As he tells his girlfriend, Clara, he feels like a fraud: he hasn’t really tasted life, and yet he’s offering advice to patients who are just not getting any happier. So Hector decides to break out of his deluded and routine driven life. Armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, he embarks on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. And so begins a larger than life adventure with riotously funny results.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

2014

Mapantsula poster
7.0

A petty gangster inevitably becomes involved in the growing anti-apartheid struggle and is forced to choose between individual gain and a united stand against the system.

Mapantsula

1988

Freedom poster
NR

Freedom (inspired by Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment) is set in contemporary Johannesburg against the #FeesMustFall student movement. It explores the paradoxical, often limited, notion of "freedom" for born-free South African youth, focusing on the harsh realities of post-apartheid life.

Freedom

2018

Sarafina! poster
6.1

A Soweto schoolgirl named Sarafina is galvanized to protest apartheid after her teacher is arrested for her activism, leading her to join the student resistance movement.

Sarafina!

1992

Black Is King poster
7.1

This visual album from Beyoncé reimagines the lessons of "The Lion King" (2019) for today's young kings and queens in search of their own crowns.

Black Is King

2020

No artwork available
6.5

Post-apartheid South Africa is the setting for this drama about a mismatched twosome who end up together on a life-altering journey to Cape Town. Polar opposites Kobus (Ian Roberts), a white ex-soldier who struggles with demons from his past, and Wonderboy (Kagiso Mtetwa), a young black street kid who clings to memories of his family, come together to take on the society that has cast them aside and eventually build a friendship for the ages.

Malunde

2001

No artwork available
NR

South African Movie

Black Cat

1975

Leading Lady poster
5.5

An idealistic British drama school teacher, Jodi Rutherford, persuades a cynical South African farmer to prepare her for a role in a major film as an Afrikaans war heroine. In return Jodi undertakes to direct the annual concert on the Willemse farm. Jodi's interaction with the quirky small town citizens and the stubborn Kobus, teaches her that: "there is more to life than lights... camera... and action!"

Leading Lady

2014

Ghost Son poster
4.5

A widowed newlywed stays on her deceased husband's South African farm, then bears a child who seems to be possessed by the dead man.

Ghost Son

2007

This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection poster
7.4

Amongst the mountains of Lesotho, an 80-year-old widow winds up her affairs and makes arrangements for her burial. But when her village is threatened with resettlement due to the construction of a reservoir, she finds a new will to live and ignites a spirit of resistance within her community.

This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection

2020

Beat the Drum poster
7.6

Young Musa is orphaned after a mysterious illness strikes his village in KwaZulu Natal. To help his grandmother, Musa sets out for Johannesburg with his father's last gift, a tribal drum, in search of work and his uncle. The journey confronts him with the stark realities of urban life, but his indomitable spirit never wavers; he returns with a truth and understanding his elders have failed to grasp.

Beat the Drum

2003

Time poster
6.4

Beginning in South Africa under the apartheid regime, the film follows a young girl who flees the country after a violent confrontation with a local white landowner in which her father is killed. She settles in Abidjan, where, ten years later, she has become a university student. As part of her studies, she visits the Taureg tribe on the edge of the Sahara before at last returning to post-Apartheid South Africa.

Time

1995

Of Good Report poster
5.6

After engaging in an illicit affair with one of his pupils, teacher Parker Sithole spirals into an abyss of obsession that eventually turns to murder. A cinephile's passionate homage to classic film noir, Of Good Report is a serial killer origins story about how a social misfit turns into an inadequate man hellbent on satisfying his shameful lust. It is Little Red Riding Hood, told from the wolf's perspective.

Of Good Report

2013

Taxi to Soweto poster
NR

A Gentle story with a moral of forgive and forget at the kernel of its’ comedy exterior ~ but also one that accurately foretold the changes that were to sweep across South Africa in 1994, as an uptight suburban Johannesburg housewife (Elize Cawood, with an equally uptight husband played by Marius Weyers) accepts a lift from a Sowetan taxi driver (Patrick Shai) and gets taken into another world entirely

Taxi to Soweto

1991

Lucky poster
7.5

A 10-year-old South African orphan leaves his Zulu village to make his own life in the city... only to find no one will help him, except a formidable Indian woman.

Lucky

2011

You're My Favourite Place poster
2.0

Nelisa Vena’s life has never been the same since the death of her sister Anathi. On the last day of their high school careers, she and three friends from a township in East London, South Africa, embark on a life-defining road trip by stealing a taxi and heading to the remote landmark of Hole in the Wall, where Xhosa legend has it you can talk to the dead.

You're My Favourite Place

2022

Wonder Boy for President poster
NR

"Wonder Boy for President," tells a story of a charismatic young man from the Eastern Cape who is coerced into running for president by two corrupt characters. It is a political satire that delves into political dynamics and challenges that arise.

Wonder Boy for President

2016

Frank and Fearless poster
NR

In an attempt to stop rhino poaching, railway chef Sonny Frank and a ten year old boy called Fearless kidnap the ambassador of a South-East Asian country.

Frank and Fearless

2018