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Money buys high-risk love

RESPONSIBILITY: Teboho Mahlatsi has directed a ground-breaking drama series about HIV/Adis
RESPONSIBILITY: Teboho Mahlatsi has directed a ground-breaking drama series about HIV/Adis

YOUNG South African film director Teboho Mahlatsi has achieved another feat in the film industry by successfully completing directing a new movie in Kenya, Nairobi.

Mahlatsi has collaborated with a Kenyan crew, including the co-director in the making of Shuga: Love, Sex and Money.

The movie will be featured on MTV Base from today, and will also be syndicated for free to global television channels, particularly in Africa.

Mahlatsi, whose other TV credits include, the hugely successful, ground-breaking drama series Yizo Yizo and Zone 14, has been hailed for his superb directoral skills of Shuga: Love, Sex and Money.

Kenyan actress Sharon Olago, the lead actor in the movie, who is based in South Africa, spoke to Sowetan before flying to Kenya to prepare for the movie's premiere on Friday last week.

The 30-year-old actress said: "Oh! It was a blessing working with Teboho. He is a good man who allows you to act in a manner that empowers you.

"He is brilliant and always allowed us to act in a way that was natural and comfortable to us."

Olago, whose other job is that of a policy researcher based in Johannesburg, said although HIV and Aids in Kenya was not as prevalent as it is in South Africa, the rate of infection was certainly on the rise.

"In Kenya we have a problem of an increasing number of young girls having multiple sexual partners, disturbingly often with older married men with financial resources.

"I would not call it prostitution, but some sort of sexual relationship arrangement with benefits-like kind of scenario.

"The use of condoms is also questionable because demand for the morning-after pill has increased. This can only mean that these girls' worries are not HIV infection, but getting pregnant," she said.

Living with the HIV stigma, rape and high-risk sexual behaviour are just some of the important topics covered in this series of Shuga: Love, Sex and Money - the new six-part drama series about sex and relationships among contemporary African youth.

The red-carpet premiere of Shuga: Love, Sex and Money took place last Friday.

Produced by MTV Networks Africa in association with The MTV Staying Alive Foundation, PEPFAR and the Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation, and the government of Kenya, Shuga: Love, Sex and Money is part of a ground-breaking multimedia campaign conceived to spread the message about responsible sexual behaviour and tolerance.

The initiative, which was warmly embraced by youth when Shuga was first aired in 2009, is funded extensively by the US.

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