There’s a photograph of Oshosheni Hiveluah bright below a film screen. She’s in Garlic & Flowers’ courtyard, you can’t see her face and from behind, her dreadlocks are an intricate tangle.
I took that photograph seven years ago not knowing it would be the shot I’d use in a stunned obituary placed blindly and through tears on Facebook.
Back then, I simply thought the image somewhat cinematic. One of Namibia’s foremost film-makers, ethereal in the light of a screen announcing her nomination for a Namibian Theatre and Film Award. In this singular and special glow, I imagined each of her dreads as the thread of a story. The ones she got to tell and the ones she didn’t.
Oshosheni always wanted me to make films.
Over a decade ago, in this small city, she got wind of a young film school graduate and soon invited a stranger to lunch. By the end of a delicious afternoon seasoned with laughter and relief about being kindred and not total and utter freaks, we were friends, but Oshosheni also became my mentor.
The first black woman film-maker I ever knew. The person who saw my talent before I ever truly did and made sure to remind me to be great, aim high and keep learning.
In this day and age, when people pass away, we scour social media for our last interaction. Had we kept in touch? Did we wish each other happy birthday this year? When was the final time we spoke?
Walking through this digital graveyard, I found a well of encouragement.
Years and years of private messages from my mentor and friend always calling me in, telling me to make films and develop my talents.
“I have to get you to write a screenplay. That’s my 2013 goal.”
A link to IFFR training for young film critics in Rotterdam, another to the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative and one more to apply to be press talent at the Berlinale Talent Campus as well as assorted anthology call-outs.
“Martha, you say the most wonderful things in all sincerity. I think we need to break our coffee/sparkling wine dates from once a year or every other year to twice a year ’cause I need to pick your brain more often. The realisation only hits me, though, when I see you live.”
I hadn’t seen Oshosheni ‘live’ in a while.
We’d sent emails, WhatsApp messages and bumped into each other excitedly when our film and journalist worlds collided but I can’t exactly remember the very last time I saw her. I don’t have a concrete and final image of her to wonder whether I had felt any inkling of goodbye in the flesh but I will always remember who Oshosheni was.
A pioneer in the film industry; a friend and a mentor to both poets and film-makers; a driving force behind Spoken Word Namibia, and a generous talent deeply rooted in, inspired by and striving for the arts community.
Oshosheni saw people.
Profoundly and with the uncanny ability to zoom in on your capabilities and amplify them through sheer support, gentle teaching and safe space.
Oshosheni knew me when I hadn’t written one professional word, when I was between jobs, writing the beginning of a bad first novel and completely adrift in the creative sea which always washes you up on a surprising variety of shores.
“Hey, time is creeping, can we meet this week? I want to pitch that role to you – lol and a lil’ audition is in order…When are you free?”
“We should look at possibly collaborating on a short film, I am tired of working on other people’s productions. I want to do my own things.”
And she did.
She wrote and directed award-winning films such as ‘100 Bucks’ (2012), ‘Tjitji – The Himba Girl’ (2015) and the unreleased ‘Underneath the Sky’. She started a casting agency, founded a production company, experimented with virtual reality and hoped to write a novel.
“On my to-do list before turning 40. Hope I find quiet time out to do that.”
Oshosheni died two years shy of her 40th birthday but she’s still so alive in her messages to me. The missives that now shame me for never collaborating. The notes that remind me to climb higher, reach further and be great. Her exuberant and wacky sparks in the night.
“Hey Martha M. I think that’s a good journo name, Martha M (smiley face). And one day you can venture into acting and be called Martha M.”
Always with the film thing.
They are all part of the threads in that tower of dreads cast in the light of a film screen.
Oshosheni is gone.
But I am grateful for her messages.
