Umphefumlo is a film adaptation of Giacomo Puccini’s opera La bohème. Director Mark Dornford-May is no stranger to opera adaptations set in South Africa, having previously directed U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, a version of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, for which he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2005.
Adapted for the screen by Pauline Malefane (Son of Man) and Dornford-May, under the musical direction of Malefane and Mandisi Dyantis, and reset from Paris to contemporary South Africa, the film follows two star-crossed lovers, played by Busisiwe Ngejane and Mhlekazi Mosiea, both of whom appeared in Dornford-May’s short Noye’s Fludde-Unogumber, who are blighted by the world they live in and a tragic illness.
