Springbok Impi Alfonzo Franke Joins Muti Films as Co-Director

Alfonzo Franke first caught the nation's eye facing down the All Blacks. One of the Springboks' Impi warriors and the last of the original trio, he has now joined Muti Films as co-director alongside founder Guto Bussab, as the Cape Town production house relaunches under their joint leadership.

Franke made his Impi debut in 2017 in a Test against New Zealand, directed to be fierce and intimidating towards the then All Blacks captain, Kieran Read. Images of the encounter went viral overnight. "The All Blacks captain said he had never seen anything like this before," Franke recalls. "Even the coach said he wished half of his team had that amount of passion."

The Impi echo a tradition that goes back to 1921, when the Springboks first answered the All Blacks' haka with an indlamu, a Zulu war dance, in Wellington. Today they lead the back-to-back world champion Springboks onto the field before home Tests to drumming, chanting and raised spears. Now in his tenth year, Franke is the only member of the original trio still performing it. "It's more than a gig. It's more than the five minutes of fame," he says. "I'm going out there to war for my country."

Off the field, Franke is a filmmaker. He was raised in Rocklands, Mitchells Plain, where school teachers first noticed his creative talent, and trained in film at AFDA. He founded the independent company Tarblak Films and won Best Cinematography in the short film category at the 2023 kykNET Silwerskerm Festival Awards for Die Blokke. He also shot Youngsta CPT's YVR, which won Best Video at the 2019 SA Hip Hop Awards, has directed music videos for Hezron Chetty and Nomisupasta, and his recent work at the Encounters Film Festival includes Amigo the Griot. He has shot artists including Koffee, Wu-Tang Clan, Youngsta CPT, Nasty C and Shane Eagle. He is active in the Cape Flats creative community and plans to start a Little Warriors Foundation to support children fighting battles of health and poverty. "I feel like coming from Mitchells Plain, that already shaped me to become a warrior in life," he says.

He says that upbringing is what he brings to Muti. "In the hood you don't get resources, you get reality. So you learn to flip it. You learn to make something out of nothing. To make a way out of no way. I bring that lens: the neighbour's perspective. The perspective of the people who are never looked at, only looked past. I know how to turn a stoep, a kitchen, a back alley into a world, because for us, that was the world. That is what I'm bringing into Muti. Not just creativity. Alchemy."

Franke will keep performing as an Impi at Springbok home Tests alongside his work at the studio. He started at Muti more than a decade ago as Bussab's assistant, and the two have since worked as a directing team, including on the 2016 video for Ghanaian rapper M.anifest's "Cupid's Crooked Bow", shot in Accra. "It was clear that his input was essential in my own creative process," says Bussab. "Alfonzo and I collaborate seamlessly, always pushing one another towards creative excellence. Muti has always been an ever-evolving entity that strives to push boundaries and create thought-provoking film content. Our next chapters will continue this ethos."