A new feature film chronicling the life of South African transgender icon Granny Lee is due to begin production in Johannesburg in April 2025.
The project, titled “Granny Lee,” participated at the Film London Production Finance Market during the ongoing BFI London Film Festival.
The titular character is based on a real-life figure who was both white-passing and trans femme and lit up the underground disco scene in the 1980s in South Africa. Set against the backdrop of Apartheid-era Johannesburg and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the film will follow Granny Lee as she guides a grieving mother through the city’s LGBTQ underground scene.
Soli Philander, a multi-hyphenate talent in South African entertainment, will portray Granny Lee. Alexandra Billings has joined the project as an executive producer through her production company, Schmengie.
The father-son directing team known as The Gabriels, comprising Ian and Gabe Gabriel, will helm the feature. Ian Gabriel, whose credits include South Africa’s Oscar submission “Four Corners,” brings firsthand experience of 1980s Johannesburg to the project. Gabe Gabriel, who wrote the screenplay, has established himself as an advocate for LGBTQ filmmakers in South Africa. The Gabriels’ previous work includes the trans-led GLAAD Media Award-nominated film “Runs in the Family,” which is currently streaming on Netflix.
The film brings together a roster of established production companies. Tshepiso Chikapa-Phiri and Joel Chikapa-Phiri’s Known Associates Entertainment, behind the Toronto-premiering “Death of a Whistleblower,” leads the South African side. Shant Joshi’s Fae Pictures, known for the Sundance and GLAAD Media Award-winning “Framing Agnes” and Pakistan’s Oscar entry “In Flames,” represents Canadian interests. Yanick Letourneau’s Peripheria, which produced Ivory Coast’s Oscar submission “Night of the Kings,” joins as a co-producer. Tamryn Reinecke’s Pale Rebel Productions, behind the SXSW award-winning “It Is In Us All,” rounds out the production team.
Executive producers include Alexandra Billings and Chrisanne Blankenship-Billings for Schmengie, Conor Barry for Savage Productions, and Lindsay Blair Goeldner and Abdul Malik for Fae Pictures.
The project is structured as a South Africa-Canada-Ireland co-production, with financing from Known Associates Group and participation from Telefilm Canada and Screen Ireland.
The producers are currently in the process of casting the role of Irene, the mother, with casting director Jessica Kelly. The film was presented to potential gap financiers at the BFI London Film Festival’s Production Finance Market.
“Granny Lee” aims to be the inaugural project produced under the recently modernized co-production treaty between Canada and South Africa, which was signed at MIP Africa in early September.
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