A Lion’s Trail, the award-winning one-hour documentary by South African filmmaker Francois Verster, has been nominated for an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Cultural & Artistic Programming” by the US National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Emmy winners will be announced on Monday, September 25 at a black tie awards ceremony in New York City.
Produced by Verster, Mark Kaplan and Dan Jawitz, the film tells the story of how Zulu isicathamiya musician Solomon Linda’s song Mbube became the inspiration for the multi-million dollar pop classic The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Although Mbube is Africa’s most famous song, Linda reaped hardly any benefits from the song’s success. The Lion’s Trail follows the efforts of journalist Rian Malan, folk singer Pete Seeger and others in trying to redress the wrongs of the past.
ITVS Independent Lens broadcast the film in the US and put it forward for the Emmys. Verster comments: “The nomination is great news and comes on the heels of much happy news over the past year in terms of royalty money going back to Linda’s family.”
The film a€” together with efforts by Malan, US parties and local lawyers – was partly instrumental in persuading local and international rights holders on the song (including The Richmond Organisation, rights holders on Wimoweh) to cede future income on the song to the Ntsele (Linda) family. Last year, after a campaign by local copyright lawyers, a settlement was reached whereby Disney paid out a large amount to the Ntsele family in Johannesburg for income from the song through the animated film, The Lion King.
The Lion’s Trail was produced by Undercurrent Film and Television, Rapid Blue and Ice Media, and was funded by SABC3, the National Film and Video Foundation, the BBC, SBS, RTBF and the IDC. It is being distributed by First Hand Films in Zurich.
