Atlantis
by Meg Rickards
2021, South Africa, 90 mins
7:00 pm on Sept 23, 2022
PG-14: Violence. Language.
About the movie
English— When taxi-driver Ra’ida’s rebellious younger brother, Marid goes missing overnight, she turns to local taxi boss, her rich uncle Amir for help. Nazeem, her uncle’s only son, knows a little too much. She is determined to find out who killed her brother and to ensure that justice is served.
French—Lorsque Marid, le jeune frère rebelle de Ra’ida, chauffeur de taxi, disparaît du jour au lendemain, elle demande de l’aide au patron de taxi local, son riche oncle Amir. Nazeem, le fils unique de son oncle, en sait un peu trop. Elle est déterminée à découvrir qui a tué son frère et à faire en sorte que justice soit rendue.
About the director
English — As a writer and director, Meg is passionate about telling authentic human stories.
In 2021, Meg directed Atlantis, a feature produced by Known Entertainment Associates and Moonlighting Films for eTV’s streaming platform eVOD. It remains to date the most streamed film on that platform.
Kaalgat Karel, a romantic comedy which she directed as well as co-wrote and produced with Paul Egan in 2020 released in South African cinemas in September 2021. The film has been selected for a number of international film festivals including the Phoenix International Genre Film Festival in the US and Boden International Film Festival in Sweden. The film won Best Film awards at the Poor Life Choices Comedy Film Festival in Los Angeles, the Gelos Comedy Film Festival in Moscow, the Lit Laughs Festival in the UK, as well as Best Feature Screenplay at Writers Guild of South Africa Muse Awards. Concurrent to shooting Kaalgat Karel, she helped to run a training programme for young filmmakers in the Eastern Cape.
Meg’s debut fiction feature, Tess, was released theatrically in South Africa in February 2017. Tess won a number of awards, including the Best South African Film Award at the Durban International Film Festival. It screened at the BRICS International Film Festival in New Delhi, and at the Brussels and Gothenburg International Film Festivals — among many others — and was screened on HBO Eastern Europe.
April 2014 saw the release of Meg’s first feature documentary, which she co-directed with Bert Haitsma, namely 1994: the bloody miracle. This much talked-about documentary, which counts down to South Africa’s first democratic elections, was broadcast multiple times by eNCA and eTV as well as by the Netherlands’ national broadcaster VPRO. It won the Audience Award at the Durban International Film Festival and the Writers’ Guild award for Best Documentary Script. The film opened the Nobel Peace Laureate Youth Summit as well as the Watch Africa Festival in Wales, and showed in several UK cities as part of the Freedom Tour. Meg’s team was invited by the Nelson Mandela Foundation to screen the film at educational institutions throughout South Africa to initiate dialogue around democracy and reconciliation.
Meg’s miniseries and tele-feature versions of the historical romance Land of Thirst have been broadcast throughout Africa and also distributed in North America, and have been translated into a number of languages. She has also written scripts for UNICEF, and her short film Azure has been used by many NGOs including the World Population Organisation.
Meg holds a PHD in Film Studies, has taught extensively at the University of Cape Town, the University of the Western Cape, SAE, the Forward Fund Academy and ACT.