– International actress Whoopi Goldberg and local veteran actress Leleti Khumalo reunited to mark 30 years of the iconic South African musical Sarafina! by Mbongeni Ngema and Hugh Masekela.

The pair attended a special screening of the pioneering film in New York on Wednesday.

To mark the anti-apartheid musical three-decades milestone, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the South African Consulate General in New York collaborated to see it through.A hearty standing ovation was also given to this now iconic movie at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, which tells the story of a protest against Afrikaans becoming an official school language.

The event was attended by Prince Albert of Monaco and members of the original Sarafina! cast: Ntombikhona Dlamini, Nandi Ndlovu, and Lindiwe Dlamini, Basetsana Kumalo, chairperson of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA Neil Diamond and a host of United Nations delegates, diplomats and members of the International Olympic Committee.

Speaking at the screening, Whoopi Goldberg said, “It’s great to be here. I look at Leleti, I look at Anant and I think, wow we did do this! I’m getting old and every couple of years there’s a celebration and this is a 30-year celebration. I am honoured to be alive to celebrate it.”

She added: “Keep talking to the kids because they are going to fix it, they are going make it happen, they are going to make change happen. They are not polite, they are not going to bend when they see something wrong and that’s what happened in the film, they just got tired and said no more.”
Iron. Picture: Thobeka Shoba.