riverside_making_it in the big city_ may 4, 2024 002_conquer

This is the first episode of the Conqueror Podcast where the host, Stephen Kosi-Huneli, shares his story of making it in the big city. He grew up in a small town, but moved to Cape Town to pursue university. After facing financial difficulties, he applied for a bursary to study filmmaking and was accepted. Despite becoming pregnant during film school, he fought to stay and complete the program. Now, as a filmmaker, he wants to share his authentic journey and inspire others to overcome challenges. What's good Conquerors? I welcome you to the very first episode of the Conqueror Podcast. Conquerors, this is a platform where we chat about real-life challenges of what makes the people that we see on social platforms be who they are. My name is Stephen Kosi-Huneli. I am super excited to be sharing parts of myself on this journalized episode. This is my story of making it in the big city. The story starts all the way from where I come from. I'm a small-town girl who decided to come to Cape Town, South Africa, back in 2011 to pursue my very first year in university. And for you to understand a little bit of the story, I will need to take you back to understanding my upbringing in this small town. So, typically raised in a black family, my mom passed on when I was 12 years old. And so, this meant that a whole lot of things changed within my family structure. My mom was the breadwinner of her family. So, by the time she had passed on, a lot shifted. It meant that I moved from a suburb area to experience a township living. So, from the ages of 12 all the way to 18, to get my matriculation, to matriculate, to finish my senior studies, really. I then stayed in the township area and experienced most of my teenage-hood in the township of Onabusha in Utineg. I won't dwell too much, but typically it's a small town. And for someone who wanted to study something in digital spaces, I definitely knew from a young age that at some point I will then get up and go and search for greener pastures. I always knew that there was something more out there for me. And so, I was curious enough to study journalism when I first got to the big city and always had dreams of making it in the world of telling stories and real-life stories of human beings and working within a news station. But that was shortly lived because during the time I was studying, I met a mentor who advised me and was able to pick up on a raw skill, rather, that I was a visual mind of a storyteller. And they then recommended that I look into filmmaking, motion picture studies. And it was not short after that, I experienced quite a downfall where I could no longer study journalism anymore due to funds, running out of funds to study. But shortly after that advice I got, I was then searching for opportunities to study filmmaking, even though I didn't have much at the time. Because when I came to Cape Town initially, I came through a inheritance from my late mom's hard-earned work. So, I was able to come to university and study in university. But then after that, once all the funds ran out, I was back to square one, really. And so, it was at this point where I applied for a bursary to join a film school that is in Cape Town, providing learnership and training, filmmaking training. And there I was, I was fortunate enough to be part of 50 participants who had applied around South Africa to join the class of 2012, that year. And there I was after...it's also a crazy story, actually, because initially when I came for the interview, I was told to look into more filmmaking stuff and get myself more equipped and try and apply the next year. So, I returned back home, all disappointed and depressed that I need to now stay back home after this interview and after being rejected. But something magical happened. One morning I was asleep and a call came through to my aunt's phone and she came into the bedroom to tell me that there's a call, that someone on the line who says they're calling from Cape Town. And I got to the phone call not too sure what to make of it. And there it was, the moment of alignment. I was told that someone had got the opportunity to study from the 50 applicants that were successful. That person was no longer to attend that academical year. So, that was me getting a gap in, that was me getting my opportunity. I was the next best thing to get the opportunity to study filmmaking. And bizarre enough, it meant that the next, the very next week, I needed to get myself set and ready to pack up from my hometown back to Cape Town for the second attempt. So, here I was, ready to study digital filmmaking. Exciting times. I get to Cape Town. This was the second attempt to get into Cape Town to study filmmaking. And as soon as I got to the school, the very first project, I realized or rather fell ill and found out that I was pregnant. It was at this time now throughout the film school, remember this is a bursary, I also got it because someone else got the opportunity and couldn't make it for the academical year. Here I am, having this stressful time to announce that I am pregnant and fearing that they will cancel me and give this opportunity to someone else. I mean, it is in the beginning of the year. So, who am I to say I can make this work even though I am pregnant and I'm about to be a mom for the very first time at the age of 21, right? What happens thereafter is that I had to fight. I had to really fight and get into, get to make sure that my mentors, my lecturers, head of the institution understands that I am able to still pursue this craft and be able to give my 100% and it could work even though I found myself in this predicament. There I was, having to convince the institution that I need to stay here and study. So, it is a hands-on intense training. Some of you all may know it is a more practical film-making training rather than a theory-dominated way of training. So, which meant that we get projects back-to-back. We get film-making projects back-to-back. It's like an army draw training. I think it's really powerful, the syllabus that was produced at Big Fish School of Digital Film-making. Exceptionally great, it has produced some phenomenal film-makers within South Africa to the world really. I really am still today very, very thankful for the opportunity. I sometimes amaze myself when I'm on set having to meet so many different people from different walks of life, different calibers, some A-listers and it still fascinates me to date that I'm standing there pursuing a career in film-making even though I had to experience so many challenges and have to overcome so many times that looked like it was not going to happen for me. This thing of making it in an industry that is so digitally informed. It's not like I grew up next to a kid who owned a camera or was exposed to any of these things growing up. So, everything was very overwhelming at first and sometimes to date, it's nine years into being a film-maker now and it still fascinates me to date that one has made it this far. And I think it's very important that we have these platforms where we can share our real, true self and stories of our journeys. Because so many times you guys look at people online and think they have it all together and really it's a whole ball of mess, I tell you, okay? It's a ball of mess and I think that's the reason why I have felt the urge to come on and utilize platforms that are not regulated or rather that are not restricted and just really pour out the realist and most authentic origin of my story in hopes that many others whom I would chat with on here or who would want to come on here that would be able to share some of the challenges they had to face while trying, while on the come-up. The come-up, the struggle of the come-up is so real, you guys. And so many times we are not given platforms to talk about it. You have to wait until you are on billboards to actually share your story as to how you became Usi and Gorsi. And I mean right now already, just by being online, there are kids from my hometown that's been wanting to know what keeps you standing, what keeps you standing. You've been in Cape Town now for some time and you know, you seem to be evolving each and every year but they don't actually know the struggles that comes behind living in a bigger city, the expenses and how ghetto growing up can actually be, right? Right, without losing the plot, here we are, pregnant, feeling school and having to convince them I needed to stay. It was quite a journey because as I said, it's a hands-on training which meant that I needed to be part of each and every project, on-site, shooting with a team. So how it works is that 20 pupils in one class needed to pitch different stories. From those stories, four stories, four or five stories if I'm not mistaken, would be selected which meant that from the 20 people that are in one classroom would be divided into groups of five. We would then go ahead and produce five different projects, storylines that would go and shoot. So it was very hard to consider me staying because it meant that at some point going home to give birth, I would miss out on a lot of the projects that would be produced at the school as part of my syllabus which was quite a tricky one because how do they then qualify me as passed for the next year or the next curriculum of the NQ levels, right, for me to finish my enrolment at the institution. But here I was speaking to my mentor about trying to go home and being home with some equipment. I mean first year I remember I'm green. I'm asking to go home with a camera to a hometown where I will be shooting myself, a pregnant woman shooting myself, content that will then be footage that will be sent back to Cape Town. But how do I do this exactly and when do I do it? Right, interesting times indeed my friends. I remember we were telling a story about a honey badger. Honey badger and the functionalities of a honey badger. It was an environmental affairs project that we were doing. And somehow I came up, I found out in my research that a honey badger is also utilised by Sangomas. Local Sangomas utilise the skin of a honey badger to do some practices, some rituals that will have some outcome. So I think it was that if you use the skin, they use the skin of the honey badger to get someone out of prison or to sort out a court case, things like that or something like that. I stand to be corrected. But I then pitched to the group and my mentor at the time to talk about a possible way of still being part of the project while I go home for my maternity leave once it was finally approved that okay I'll go home and have a maternity leave of a duration of time and then I'll come back and continue my studies, my academical year. So I needed to do something during the time while I was waiting to go and give birth. I needed to do something so I can make sure I get the results and marks, I can get to be rated as well for that project. And I then pitched the story of saying guys I can still be part of the honey badger storyline and I am going to shoot a lady that's back home with her son Goma. I'll be interviewing her and then that footage I'd like to send back home. Now how do you give a first year student equipment to go and shoot? Right? I'm not experienced. I'm still new here. It's the first few months of my academic year. And so I asked a senior at the time, a senior who's from my hometown to book up some equipment for me and then I would then be able to pick up the equipment from her house back home, shoot something and then provide her with the equipment so that the equipment can return back to Cape Town while I become a first time mom. Literally those two plays, it sounds simple when I'm talking about it but literally just thinking back it's just, it was such a mission, it was such a thing to overcome, to be so passionate about being dedicated to making a life for myself in the world of filmmaking but at the same time being overwhelmed becoming a young mom and having to deal with my family at that point in time and tell them guys I am pregnant, I know that I've disappointed you guys because I left initially to go make a life for myself and make things, transform things for my family and become this person that would be successful and educated and all that. I think mainly what every black family really wants for their children, if you send a child out to university or to a bigger city, you aim that they will come back successful to make a life for themselves or to rejuvenate the living state within the family home and really just elevate the family name and give opportunities to many others that come behind you whether it be your own siblings or your, you know, your siblings or other relatives that are in the family but you're now the educated one, you now become the breadwinner, that's how it literally works and most of us call it black tech but the way I see it is that these people put their hopes on you, they believe in you so that, you know, in believing that you are going to be the light in Gwengwes, you are going to bring the light within the family home. There was the big disappointment coming home and saying that, okay, I don't have a degree on my name, I don't have any qualification on my name as of yet but guess what, I'm pregnant you guys, not so much of a great announcement at all and then there were the complications of having to deal with identifying and having to, you know, there's a thing called in Kaulu and the Posa culture, there was a whole naming and shaming because I was very everywhere confused in terms of where do I go, I'm no longer dating the guy that may impregnated me and that was also something else within my family which had led then to me and my family that initially raised me from the ages of 12 years old to 18 to close the door and say, you know what, go ahead and figure this thing out yourself, it is your mess after all and we wish you nothing but the best and things really changed in my family home once I came home and said I'm pregnant man, it changed and it had a painful, really, really painful impact to my life and had to take some time to heal over these years so many messy parts of myself, it's even still difficult to talk about certain things because I am still healing, you know, healing is a constant thing, it's an ongoing thing and it sounds so cliche and overly said but what are we healing from? We're healing from our own disruptiveness, we are healing from our own lack of self-control, we are healing from the shame that comes with certain behaviours and how you are misunderstood and how you are portrayed within your family and estimated to the community at large and so it was really a period of my life that is very, still very hard to talk about or to deal with. Nonetheless, the film school was very happy with the product that I shot back home, that they were very sure that I possessed a raw talent that was really, really something that they could utilise and something that they wanted to sharpen. I'm still grateful to a great mentor of mine, Mr Hein Unger, who was in the front line of really seeing my potential and fighting for me and really convincing me and being of great support to me. You know, the universe has a weird way of operating. At times where you feel like you're alone, you know, family has turned their back on you, they find you disappointing and consider you as a child of shame, the black sheep and you find yourself there without a mum, without a father, young, pregnant and you're about to become a mum yourself and you are still conflicted with your own lack of knowledge of your own identity and not knowing who you are. I mean, it was rather a lot, you know, but yet what's fascinating about how the universe works and how God aligns and brings people into your world, into your life, just at the time when you need them the most. There were some special characters such as my mentor, Mr Hein Unger, who's really played a role far beyond just being a lecturer, a mentor, an educator, really just close to my heart and I'm so happy to be opening up about this because some people really play such a huge role in your life and you only get to reflect back on it years later and realize, had it not been for this person crossing my world at that time, I really might not have actually become who I am or think I am, right? And it's actually, it's beautiful, it's a beautiful story and a time in my life and I'm grateful for each and every person that came into my life and helped me pick myself up in times where I had thought that this is it, all my dreams are shattered, this is me, there's no light here for me, there's no coming back from this and there's absolutely no coming back from clearing the shame within my community. How do I come back as a sophisticated person that I've always thought I've become and change things for the young girl within this community when I myself am so flawed, I'm a ball of flaws and I am a canvas of mess, you know? And, you know, coming to the big city and not having the guidance of a parent was, I guess, the most biggest risk I've ever done because no one actually sat me down to tell me these are the do's or don'ts or this is how dating should look like and this is how affection and love looks like. It's like we come from homes where this was even portrayed from our upbringing, you know, we don't know much about affection and all that. And so when it came to dating, it was in my first year, I think I encountered falling in love for the very first time in my life and it is a story on its own because it then really drifted my attention away from what I initially came here for and I just focused on building this relation with this person that I was extremely in love with and thought that this was my ride or die. It's amazing how at the ages of 18, 19, we overly commit and think that this is our forever, not knowing that from 18 to 19, there's going to be 25, there's going to be 28, there's going to be 29, not to mention there's going to be the transition of the ages of 30. That transition is big. So I just turned 32 this year, 2024 and 32 has its own things and I feel like I am completely filterless, completely filterless at this point and I'm learning to speak my truth. I'm learning to live my truth for the purpose of having my story become my art and as a storyteller, filmmaker, I am now only starting to be bold enough to gain the confidence of being able to say this is my truth, this is my story. So where do I begin? How do I step into the film industry then and eventually after graduating at the film school? I did exceptionally well because I was so hungry, because I was so hungry and because I was so hungry and dedicated and so frustrated and furious and really wanted a comeback, a revenge and a way of saying that this is going to be me making it up to my family, making it up to my community. I'm still that girl that you guys desired me to be. I'm still that woman, I'm still to become that woman that you guys saw that this is our future for our community, for our family and because of that drive I made it into film school. I made it, I stayed at the film school and I pushed and gave it my all. I was able to go to international film festivals with some of the projects I worked on with an incredible team of fellow film students at the institution. Year in, year out, throughout the different projects we were able to put our projects on a high level at the institution. I was fortunate to be awarded a Best Director Award at the institution and come end of academical year of film studies and it was a blessing and really truly a rewarding time and an affirmation that says I am exactly where I need to be regardless of all the trials and tribulations that I had to conquer. And so conquerors, that's the bit of the journey. Let's go into post film school times, getting into the film industry after graduating at the film school and getting all these awards, right? I had the idea, I had the idea that this is me becoming a world known film director. Oh no darling, that's not the case. That is not the case. You'll start from the bottom up and then learn your way through. I mean, let alone finding the confidence to be amongst all the film crew and all the moving elements within a film set with something else. And I think this is a very interesting part for a lot of the people that get onto my DMs on social media and they'll come through and say, I've always wondered how you got into the film industry. I've got a niece who wants to go into the film industry. Is there anything that you can say? I've had people reach out to me and I've jumped on some couple of calls with young minds who wanted to understand a little bit more about pursuing a career in film making. And honey, I don't shy away to talk to them and tell them the real truth of the struggles. Being a freelancer is not a child's play. There are times where you'll be working back to back and there are times where it's dead quiet and you live off your savings. And then you watch your savings run out and burn out and then you're back to ground zero. And that has happened so many times. It is only now for me where I'm starting to say, okay, how can I structure myself? How can I have other things happening for me on the side because I'm a freelancer, right? There are so many times where we're sitting around idling, not knowing how to keep ourselves stimulated or inspired. And so I think this is one of the reasons why building this platform, it's really for me to utilize it myself as a healing platform as well as a platform I can utilize and build while I am a freelance filmmaker and have it take a life on its own. But most importantly, what comes out of it is that I get to meet a lot of brilliant minds and learn something myself and share it with many others who have been asking throughout the years on my social media about my career journey. Film making, I faced a lot of challenges coming in. After graduating at film school, I spent about two and a half years working in call center environments within Cape Town to make a living so that I could survive and put a roof over my head. At this point, my childhood living back home was still back home. My childhood was with a family of mine that I inherited. So my childhood was with my granny back home and I was in Cape Town. Just after graduating, people thought that I'll be making millions straight after because I'll be working in the luxurious film space. I'll be working in Hollywood and so I'll be rich instantly. I was actually quite convinced that that will be the case too until I was right into experiencing that that is not the case, honey. In fact, you will start as a hustling artist. You will be dead broke. You will have to just push through and work in different environments to make a living. I worked within the call center environment for about two years and while I was doing this, I was always busy trying to search a way out. I would take leave actually for my annual leave. The only time I would take leave in these spaces was so that I can go ahead and shoot some stuff of my own. I would work with some of the brilliant minds that I met at the film school. We were still in connection years later and we would still take a camera, utilize a small camera to shoot some stuff. It is also during this time where I got to do some public speaking, some events hosting. We were very fired up. There was a lot of things happening. All the group of people that I went to school with, all the people that came to Cape Town at the time, I got to collaborate a lot and do some a bit of arty-farty stuff, hosting events, attending screenings, encounters, film festivals. Each year I was part of that team of people. Lots was going down for us, but for a living, for me to have a roof and to actually sustain myself in a big city, I had to work at the call center. And so even before actually graduating, just in the last few months of film school, I was already part-timing at a call center. So my day would look like waking up in the morning, traveling from Parklands to Cape Town, CBD, Greenpoint, to the film school, to be there at 8 o'clock. From 8 to 5 o'clock, I need to be at the film school and then at 6 o'clock to 10 o'clock in the evening, I'm at the call center working for an international company, taking those calls, baby, taking those calls, I tell you. Yeah, it was a very devastating time of my life. I was like, am I really going to spend two years working within a call center after graduating in film school? What does it take for me to step into the film industry? What does one have to do? Who do you have to know? And it was exactly that. It was about who do you know? Who's your network within the space so that you can know about jobs that are ongoing within the city? It is not that you can go on and search jobs. I did this so many times, you guys. I used to search for jobs. You know in job hunting, you'd be on there looking for jobs within the film industry. Never a chance, never a chance did I ever search a job in the film industry and got a job within the film industry. It was only until I got a phone call while I was in my call center job. I got a phone call to come in for an interview in town and I jumped at the opportunity and I felt it in my gut that this was my opportunity, this was my out. I quit my job five minutes before the shift ended at the call center to head out and go meet a gentleman by the name of Justin Fandemarva, the first AD within the film space. When I walked up, I met Justin Fandemarva. This guy shows up and he says, oh wow, hey CJ, thank you for coming in. You're going to be interviewed by myself to join the AD department as a trainee. But man, you look so tiny in person and so innocent in person. I don't know if you're going to be able to cope on such a job. We'll be having a whole lot of extras, it's a lot of cost, there's a lot of children cost as well, so a lot of a lot of rules comes with that and this being your first job, I don't know if you're going to be coping. And I remember telling this man that, kind sir, I have just quit my job five minutes before shift ended. I'm not from Cape Town and so if I do walk out of here without a job, I don't know how I'll be sustaining myself to survive in this city. In other words, there was no going out of there without me getting the job. And then once I jumped on my very first job, which was on an international scale as well, and I worked as an AD trainee, I remember stepping on the film set for the very first time, arriving at base camp and seeing this white big tent and everyone's eating, the buffet has ceased. Listen, I've never seen so many people eating in early hours of the morning as I witnessed for the very first time when I stepped into the film industry. It is a base camp, I lost complete appetite to seeing so many people move, fast-moving people, I think at 4am in the morning, everyone's eating a full English breakfast, you know, you have your mueslis, you have your bacon, your eggs. It was a whole thing for me to witness. And it was giving a lot of, it was as if it was 4am in the morning in eastern Cape, that this was us preparing for a traditional ceremony. But now there's different people from different races, different cultures in one space, in the middle of nowhere, and I think for me that was the most fascinating element. And where do I even fit in? How do I position myself in this situation? There's so many people, I don't even know how to identify my people within the AD department. And so there I was with the crew list, trying to find a woman by the name of Jackie Jojo, the late Jackie Jojo, may her soul rest in peace. And that's the person, something told me that, you know, okay, she was a senior, she was my point of contact, my paper second, so the main person that I needed to reach out to and announce that I am on location. So clock in, and you just clock in. And I was out there looking for Jackie Jojo within this white tent, and someone told me, you will find her in the AD production truck. Where are the trucks? All the trucks look the same. Oh my goodness, please don't let me open the door of an actor. Please don't let me open the door of an actor and ask him for Jackie Jojo. Please, please, please, please. It was like one of my worst fear of looking for the AD trailer and ending up opening up an actor's trailer and finding a half-naked actor trying to get dressed. Apart from so many embarrassing moments that I could go on and go on about on here, that did not happen, thank goodness. I found Jackie Jojo, she balanced me out, told me to go get breakfast after grabbing breakfast. I should head back to her, and she'll tell me to get onto a shuttle, and I'll go over to set to help the rest of the team. She gave me a slide. If you're in the film industry, you'll know that a slide will be basically a breakdown of what the day's schedule looks like. She explained it to me how it works. Even though base camp was so busy, it was early hours of the morning, it was the first day of shoot. Everyone was on edge, you know, because it happens on first days of shoot. Everyone feels overwhelmed. They really want that first turnover. They want that first action. They want that first day of shoot to go very well for it to set a momentum of the rest of the shoot days. So for you to be a little kid who doesn't know what's going on when who's who in the zoo, it's quite an overwhelming mess to even get any information because everyone else is still very much all over trying to find their way as well on first day of shoot. But Jackie Jojo took her time in that moment of meeting her for the very first time to really put my head and balance my head. This is where you get the shuttle. It was the smallest of things. I just needed to know the direction. I saw a lot of people going one direction, but some of them did not look like people that would be able to tell me where to go. I mean, there's nothing, there's no information I can get from a guy in the lighting department. He's busy trying to get his C-stand and tools in order. He doesn't have time to instruct a young kid who looks completely lost on the set. But yeah, fast forward to building myself within that space, overcoming stardom. Stardom attracts where I'm having a moment of being overwhelmed, meeting the first star in my life and some of the people that I grew up watching on television screens, meeting them on a personal level and being told that this person is now under your care. It is also your responsibility to make sure that this person gets information at all times from above and make sure that they are well informed in terms of what we are shooting, what we are moving on to, while staying connected to a hokey tokey radio earpiece that informs you and gives you this information. And being new to all of that was absolutely overly overwhelming. But you know what? We spin and we do it. We do it and the more you do it, it becomes muscle memory. You end up becoming confident now to speak and being confident to ask questions when you're not clear about certain things. So, filmmaking is really something that you learn on site. I can tell you that. Yes, the creativity process that comes with being at film school can never be taken away by anyone because the education you get behind anything really, no one can take that away from you because it helps you comprehend what different roles people do. So, as much as I was overwhelmed and everything was messy, the fortunate thing is that I came from a film school background, which meant that I know what a sports does, I know what a lighting department comprises, I know what a costume department, you know, I know there's a design, I know there's a supervisor, I know there's a standby, I know the different respective roles within the film industry because of sitting down and learning about it. And so, as much as it was overwhelming, I at least came from a film background. When they talk about certain terminology, I was aware of what they are referring to, but at times I was quite lost, especially because everything moves quite fast in terms of communication on these channels because time is money within the film space. And yeah, that was the greater chunk of the getting started and get foundation phase of my journey within filmmaking. I think some of you all do know where I stand now. I'm quite a flexible person. I'm still learning. It's a bottomless learning. It's a technical space, so it's constantly evolving. Things are shifting all the time. We just came out of a global Hollywood strike, which meant that us who are based in Cape Town, relying on international service jobs coming to the city, were highly impacted, especially the crew from the bottom of the pyramid. We were really highly impacted in so many ways. I know that there's people who lost so much assets during this time, especially coming out of post-pandemic, and we were just on a journey of starting to make up our finances after losing a two-year of being impacted as an industry. And so, to have a film strike really took us back yet again, and here we are starting from ground up. Some of us are also making shifts and making decisions of moving into different career paths because of these different challenges. Sana, as I said, being a freelancer is no child's play. It is no joke. You have to have your big girl panties on in this one. You must have conquered so much before as well to be able to know that you will make it out to the other side. There'll be a light at the end of the tunnel, right? And you need to be that passionate and that invested. In my case, it's kind of hard to drop the industry or the career path because I've come so far, if you're listening through from where it started and how I got here, it's like I've come so far and I'm still as hungry as I was from day one, even though I have encountered so many challenges, some that are extremely financially, financial downfalls. And as a mom raising my son, it has been different, monumental, different struggles within this journey. But because I carry this thing within my heart and I recognize it as a God-given gift within myself as well, other than the fact that I got to get trained for it and get to study it, but I think it's really a calling. And for me to be in those spaces, I become a healer. I heal myself and I get creative juices being amongst creative people. So yeah, we're still here, man. We're still standing. And in conclusion, you guys, what can I say in terms of surviving the different difficult times within a big city? I think it is very important for us to have support systems in place, whether it be friends or family, partners, building good, healthy relationships. I think it's absolutely important to have good relations and have really powerful support systems in place so that as we move and evolve, we are able to lean on some people that really have the best interest at heart. Still, I rise. I think each and every time I fall and I come out on the other side as a grown person with wisdom and as a person who really falls in love with herself each and every time. And so with all that I have been through, be it my personal life or career life, I really proud myself of standing tall, chinning up, and being able to say there is a big part for me here. I am exactly where I need to be. And there are very powerful things I'm yet to do and shift within the space. I'm yet to revolutionize certain things. I'm yet to help young minds who are storytellers like myself. I'm yet to make a movie and become the director I'm destined to be and believe that I am. And so we keep standing, we keep moving, we keep knowing that there is indeed a divine destiny over our lives. And so I will leave you with that today, Congress, on this beautiful episode in my journal about making it in the big city. A small-town girl comes to Cape Town, a bigger city than she's ever experienced ever before, and she makes it into a digital space called Filmmaking and pursues a career for the past nine years. Comes on here and builds a Conquer podcast to share stories of the real-life challenges that we experience throughout our upbringing or pursuit. So there you have it, everybody. That's the little bit of brief that we have for you on this episode regarding the life of Sylvan Gorsy and making it in the big city. This small-town girl takes a stand and a leap of faith, moves herself to a big city to pursue a career in a digital career path and meet some Hollywood stars and be among some great giants and be able to articulate myself, even though I come from the bare minimum, and be able to articulate myself and structure myself in these spaces really is something I'm proud of, and I hope that fire continues for a very long run until I really do make a great, be of great impact within this filmmaking space. There you have it, Congress. Thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you next Sunday. Each and every Sunday, we bring you nothing but the greatest of inspiring stories from people who have conquered some of the difficult stages of their life in becoming the big brand names that we see on social media and different internet platforms. Thank you for joining me. I'm out. Thank you, Congress. Bye now.