Karabo Lediga
Writer-director
South Africa
Karabo is a writer and director for television and film. Her short film, which she wrote and directed titled ‘What Did You Dream?’, premiered in competition at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and was also in competition at The Palm Springs International Short Film Festival. She has written for the first African Netflix Original series, the spy thriller ‘Queen Sono’. Across 12 seasons of the two-time International Emmy nominated news satire show ‘Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola’ and three seasons of the comedy series ‘Next of Next Week’, she worked as a writer, director, content producer and performer. Her directorial work also includes 2 seasons of the sketch comedy show ‘The Bantu Hour’ and situational comedy ‘The Mayor’. Her TV writing work also includes South African Film and Television Award winning ‘Lockdown’, ‘MTV Shuga 5’ and the four-part miniseries ‘Emoyeni: Insanguluko’ and most recently as development writer for animated series ‘Queens’ for Wild Sheep.
Project
Sabbatical
LESEGO (35), a high-ranking black woman in the chauvinistic banking sector in South Africa, wakes up at her modest, ornate and now foreign childhood home after unexpectedly arriving drunk. Her adoring mother, DORIS (65), implores her to stay for an overdue reunion. She overwhelms her with food, no privacy and flaunts her success to her close-knit savings club. Lesego hides that she was fired, has no access to her bank accounts, and that her boss has fled the country leaving her to take responsibility for fraud. While an investigator retraces details of her opulent but lonely, miserable life, Lesego looks for ways to escape her crime and a suffocating Doris. When she reunites with her old friends, she finds a bleak life with little progress. She must leave. Doris, her original mentor, is the only person who can help her but she can’t tell her truth. The investigator arrives at Doris’ doorstep forcing mother and daughter into a reckoning – that success is not at all what it seems.
