Pinehas Nakaziko
Windhoek
Award winning actor and director, Armas Shivute Armas, is busy working on his profile so he can penetrate the international film and theatre market.
“I have recently just completed shooting an international movie that will be released around September. Unfortunately I cannot shed much light on that until the producers give us that green light. Just watch this space,” Armas says.
He ambitiously adds that he wants to make it into the international market and put Namibia on the map.
“That is what my team and I are working on now. I have few contacts and I am eying Mzanzi and Nollywood.”
Armas fell in love with entertainment at a very young age.
“I have always been doing jobs that are related to acting and entertainment in general.”
He has mostly acted in other people’s productions, but he has also staged few successful productions of his own such as ‘My Big Brother’ that won the award at the College of the Arts (COTA) Youth Theatre Festival in 1999.
His other productions include ‘Daily Hair Salon’ and ‘Barber’ starring the late Stanley Van Wyk in 2005, ‘Shot in the Foot’ starring local singers Lady May and Carlos Lokos in 2008 and ‘Efundula’, a theatre play he did with the Eenhana Community Theatre group between 2006 and 2007.
Apart from his own projects, he has also featured in a number of successful productions, local and international. Some of the films he featured in include ‘No free Lunch’ by Vickson Hangula; award winning film ‘Katutura’ by Obed Emvula and Florian Scott and ‘Where Others Wavered’ by PACON
He also featured in ‘One Fine Day’ by NBC; ‘The Next of Kin’, a British Production; Namibia’s first series on NBC 1, ‘The Ties that Bind’, ‘Tit for Tat’ and ‘Love and Respect’ by Dudley Vial.
Apart from films, he has also done plays such as ‘President Khaya Africa’ by Theatre for Africa in Cape Town; ‘Katutura 59’ by Fredrick Phillander; and ‘Shebeen Queen’ by Jacques Nashilongweshipwe Mushandja which won him the Best Actor award at the Film and Theatre Awards 2012.
Armas says he has also contributed so much to the local film and theatre industry.
“I used to work for the National Theatre of Namibia on a project called Youth Theatre Development Project (YTDP). I was tasked with training young people in different areas of theatre, from acting, producing, directing, writing and marketing. I continue doing workshops with interested people up to now,” he says.
Most recently he has been working on an arts project with the young people of L?eritz from the Seaflower White Fish Corporation.
“I remain open and available if there are people interested in learning and sharing about this arts genre. It is difficult to conduct these kind of workshops, but with companies such as Seaflower, opportunities are endless,” he says proudly.
To top it up, Armas has also been working on a theatre play, ‘Joseph’s Dillema’, directed by Vickson Hangula scheduled for staging at the National Theatre of Namibia (NTN) in early September. He will feature in the lead role of Joseph.
He says ‘Joseph’s Dillema’ is an exciting play, portraying one of history’s worst cases of “infidelity and betrayal”꿾hich for centuries was conveniently overlooked, disregarded and ignored.
In the play a young carpenter, Joseph, is happily engaged to his beautiful young fianc?, until someone more powerful than he is chooses that fianc? to bear his son to be.
Joseph’s fianc?, Mary, has to give the news that she is going to be the mother of the promised Messiah. The play will feature Dawie Engelbrecht as the sympathetic barman.
Armas is currently at the College of the Arts (COTA) doing his diploma in African Performing Arts.
“You see when you have been in the trade for a long time you forget that qualifications are very important. I therefore want to show papers of the trade that I am specialised in.” he says.
The husband to a beautiful wife and a father to his beautiful kids, he says his family are the reason he pushes for success every day. He adds that being an actor in Namibia is not at all easy.
“Our population is very small for one to really crack it, and make it big. Therefore, many people are doing it on a part time basis. You need to remain focused and determined to really make it as an actor in Namibia. You needs to stretch out for you to make it,” Armas says.