Ashraf Johaardien: Telmo dos Reis followed the Umfolozi from source to sea. The world premiere of his FullDome film Umfula took place at Fak’ugesi on Friday 16 October.

Set-up day.

Concrete floor, multicoloured square lights, vertical RGB bars along the wall. I walk the expo floor in search of Telmo.

A tall blue banner reads “UMFULA: ECHOES OF THE RIVER”. A woodcut-style illustration of a person in a VR headset frames four black bar stools. A man stands beside it, and I introduce myself.

Telmo dos Reis is an immersive media director and the founder of VR Capture, a cinematic VR studio. Close Encounters, his fulldome film on the African wilderness, won Best Environmental Film at Dome Fest West in Colorado in 2025. He grew up in Vryheid, where he went to school, close to where the river begins. “I knew of the Umfolozi River and the dam in Vryheid, but I didn’t know its full journey.” He came to the rest of the river late. First came years of 360° documentaries, VR, FullDome, environmental and wildlife films. “I began looking at the environment around me differently.”

What he saw was that the river runs on towards iSimangaliso Wetland Park and the Indian Ocean, and that at St Lucia, one of Africa’s largest estuaries, he had already been following some of the environmental changes. “That became the link.” The film, Umfula: Echoes of the River, follows the water from source to sea. The story developed on the road. “The story wasn’t planned from the beginning; it evolved along the way.” The crew interviewed people as they travelled down the river, and what those people described shaped what the film became.

The river itself would not cooperate with the camera. The water is too murky to film underwater, and dos Reis says it has been that way for as long as he has known it, so the sequences below the surface are animated. What stayed with him from the shoot sits above the waterline. “What struck me most was how beautiful everything can look, even when there are serious environmental problems.” At St Lucia the estuary can look “amazing, as though nothing is wrong”. The estuary remains closed. Flooding and pressure from upstream carry on. On the ground he met people “deeply passionate about their culture and protecting nature”, worried about large industries arriving in the places they call home.

The voice came later, by another route. Thando Fuze, a poet, was first meant only to narrate. The team had heard her in their first promotional trailer a few years ago and knew she was the right person for the role. Cheryll Tuckett, the producer, was involved in that process as well. In his telling, “at some point she became the voice of the river itself.” She went on to co-write the script, which brought poetry into the narrative, “making it more lyrical and emotional rather than simply informative.”

There is ancient rock art in the region, “some of it largely unknown to the general public”, and people and wildlife have lived in this landscape for thousands of years. More recently, he says, the river and the region around it are deeply connected to Zulu heritage and South African history. “Some of the heart of Zululand lies along these rivers.” The confluence of the rivers has cultural significance, including its association with the private hunting grounds of Zulu kings. He names the eMakhosini Valley as another place in the wider region with a rich history connected to Zulu kings and chiefs. Against that history he sets a plain account of who pays when it goes wrong. “Ultimately, nature bears the cost of the damage humans cause around the river. And when the natural environment suffers, people suffer too.”

There are two versions of Umfula, a 360° 3D VR experience and a FullDome film, and each does something different. VR is individual, one person alone with the river, and it can go directly into rural communities that might not have access to a dome. It went there first, to six community events in rural KwaZulu-Natal.

Premiere.

The FullDome screening starts at 14:45 on Friday. Thirty minutes, 8K, spatial sound. I am not in the dome. What I have of that afternoon is secondhand.

FullDome is the shared version. In his words, “you can go into a dome with family, friends or colleagues, and everyone experiences the journey together, looking at the same thing at the same time.” He adds that it “opens the film up to a wider audience and makes it easier to distribute, including internationally.”

The screening is followed, at 15:45, by From Source to Sea, a panel that asks whether immersive media can move awareness into action. In his written answers, asked what he would like the room to do when the lights come up, dos Reis starts with feeling and ends with water. He hopes people feel “more connected to the people who live in the region”, and he hopes they leave thinking about conservation and the importance of keeping water clean, “both for our physical needs and for its spiritual significance”.

As dos Reis says: “It’s not only about caring for the Umfolozi. It’s about taking care of nature and remembering that rivers are our lifeblood.”

Awards night.

By the time we meet again, at the Awards that close the festival, the world premiere is behind him and the work moves on to applications for international festivals. What stays is the work, and the people along the river who spoke into it.

I have spent much of this year writing about water, mostly from the shore. Here is someone who had to animate what the water would not let him film. It is only our second meeting. When he calls out and waves goodbye on his way to the car park, it feels like a farewell from an old friend.

Kulwandle is isiZulu for to the sea.

Umfula is the word for river.

Ashraf Johaardien is the Writer in Residence at the Fak’ugesi African Digital & Innovation Festival 2026. His views are his own and do not represent those of the festival or its partners.

Ashraf Johaardien
ashrafjohaardien@me.com
M\e. Creative
http://www.fakugesi.co.za

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