When working on the Alexforbes ArchAngel sponsorship campaign, it became clear that the story of the inspirational young sailors, hailing from townships in the Western Cape and competing in the 2023 Cape2Rio Yacht Race, was one that had to be captured and shared with South Africa.

It is inspiring and will open the eyes and minds of young South Africans and anyone else, anywhere in the world who face extreme life challenges to see opportunity and hope where they believe none existed. It is also a powerful story of crossing between worlds, not just oceans.

Sibusiso Sizatu, the team’s skipper and from whose perspective we wanted to tell their story, is a leader with purpose. An instrumental character in Sibu’s life, Roger Hudson, captures the kind of person and leader Sibu is when he recalls meeting him: “he comes with a kind of built-in wisdom”. And the story to be told is of his journey from being a rural herd boy in the Eastern Cape to Skippering a team from marginalised communities in an iconic and gruelling trans-Atlantic race.

They are heroes – not just because they completed the race and finished on the podium, but because life could have been so different for them if they had not taken opportunities when presented, that they persisted relentlessly despite their world working against them, and that they want their pioneering success to give hope and opportunity to many more youngsters just like them.

FILMMAKERS

Co-directors: Leigh Pohl, Sam Tengani, Alberic Vollmer

Producers: Kyle Wilhelm, Leigh Pohl, Alberic Vollmer

Executive Producers: Viresh Maharaj, Colette Van Dyk