One of Hollywood's biggest stars is getting the work of a South African animal rights activist onto screens around the world.
Barbie actress Margot Robbie and LuckyChap, the production company she co-founded, will begin shooting a movie, Manaka, about activist Jamie Joseph and her Saving the Wild organisation in South Africa next year.
In October 2017, Joseph exposed what she calls her “Blood Rhino Blacklist” — a crooked cabal of justice officials taking bribes over rhino poaching, child rape and other crimes against humanity.
She claimed many of those on the list paid money into the bank account of KwaZulu-Natal regional court president Eric Nzimande, leading to his suspension by parliament in October 2018.
Nzimande appeared in the Durban high court this week on five counts of contravening the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act for allegedly receiving bribes worth about R230,000.
The fictionalised movie will focus on Joseph's efforts to expose the rhino-mafia syndicate involving justice officials, poachers and international buyers of rhino horns. It will also highlight the death threats she and others received, as well as a hit on a police officer.
Joseph this week told the Sunday Times she was merely the face of activism and was thrilled that the film, inspired by true events, would expose the criminal element in rhino poaching.
Joseph said she met Robbie — a two-time Oscar-nominated actress — in June 2018, and the saga of ongoing injustice moved the actress deeply.
“I met her through another movie producer in LA. At the time, I was actually being pitched to be the subject of a streaming series, with an Academy Award-winning film director attached [to it]. I was about to sign the deal on that, but then I met Margot.”
The actress came to South Africa with her crew to visit Joseph and some of her team on the ground and learn more about the rhino crisis.
Efforts to contact Robbie were unsuccessful, but the movie was publicly confirmed on November 17.
Hollywood entertainment magazine Variety said this week that Thomas “Eromose” Ikimi, director of the Tribeca Film Festival player 88, would write the screenplay for Manaka, which would be financed through Romulus Entertainment.
Joseph said her name would be used in the movie, but she was unsure who would play her.
The Saving the Wild intelligence operation led to the arrest of Kruger National Park rhino-poaching kingpin Petros “Mr Big” Mabuza, who was assassinated in a classic organised-crime hit three years later while out on bail in June 2021.
In March 2020, the Hawks investigating officer involved in exposing the syndicate, Lt Col Leroy Bruwer, was gunned down on his way to work.
“The unsung heroes are the rangers, police officers and whistle-blowers I work with [who are] persecuted by their state employers for exposing corruption and pursuing high-level targets,” she said.
The movie meant everything to her because the country was “now down to the very last of the rhinos”.
“If there is any chance of winning the war on greed and corruption and honouring the brave and extraordinary humans on the front lines, they need the biggest spotlight in the world to motivate political will,” she said.
KwaZulu-Natal is experiencing its worst rhino death toll, with 266 killed this year, most of them at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife's Musa Mntambo confirmed the figures, saying they would be updated tomorrow.
“We have improved our foot-patrol deployment by employing locals as fence liners, which allows us to easily obtain intelligence reports. Our interventions are bearing some fruit, and we could be more successful if we had more financial support to introduce these initiatives throughout all our reserves,” he said.
Joseph said Saving the Wild’s team of pro bono attorneys at Norton Rose Fulbright were preparing a case against the South African government relying on the constitutional right to the environment and the state’s failure to adequately prosecute environmental crimes.
Section 24(b) of the South African constitution provides that “everyone has the right to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation [and] promote conservation”.
Born in Zimbabwe, Joseph moved to Durban as a baby. Her passion for wildlife was sparked by a visit she made to Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park.
“I was mesmerised. The rhinos were everywhere. Nowadays, you’re lucky if you see even one rhino in the park. They’re being annihilated because of corruption.”
Joseph moved to the UK for five years, where she worked for Microsoft in London as an MSN web developer before moving back to South Africa.
She said that as a teenager she was “caught up in the wave of the ecstasy dance era in the late 1990s” when her then-boyfriend was selling the drug for a syndicate.
“I was suddenly exposed to a lot of turf-war violence and entrenched corruption within the police and the judiciary, and those two years prepared for me for what I am fighting now. [Whether it's] drug syndicates or rhino-poaching syndicates, it's the same [thing] — there is no rule of law. So it had to be me who took on this crusade, because I know how the criminal networks function from the inside out.”
She started Saving the Wild in 2017.
KwaZulu-Natal National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Natasha Ramkissoon-Kara said that between April 2012 and October 2015 Nzimande recommended that several individuals be appointed as acting regional court magistrates.
“The state is alleging that he sought and received gratification from each of these individuals either before, during or shortly after their appointments,” she said.
The matter was this week adjourned to May 20.
Nzimande's lawyer, Ravindra Maniklall, said there hadn’t been any formal communication with them about the movie.
Maniklall said they didn't have a problem with a movie because it was a work of fiction, but they would have a problem with it if it tarnished Nzimande's reputation, because his suspension had nothing to do with rhino poaching.
“He is not involved in any rhino-poaching activities, and all these stories that he is linked to [them] are not true. The disciplinary hearing is coming up in January, and it also has nothing to do with rhino poaching. It’s just the judicial deadline with [regard to] an internal matter relating to a magistrate. We will wait and see [what] that movie says,” said Maniklall.
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