Inkosi

In 1886 Johannesburg, a young Zulu migrant navigates a brutal criminal underworld, rising from nothing to become king.

About the Film

Gold has been discovered. Johannesburg is a city being invented out of violence and appetite. Into it walks Sipho, a young man from the eastern territories with nothing but intelligence and an instinct for survival.

Inkosi traces his ascent through the criminal networks governing the city's underbelly – diamond smugglers, colonial enforcers, rival gangs, and a crooked administration building the infrastructure of apartheid before it has a name. His rise is neither heroic nor villainous but ruthlessly pragmatic.

A historical crime epic about the collision of African tradition and colonial power – told at the scale of a single man navigating the worst of both worlds.

Creative Team

Tochi Onyebuchi is a critically acclaimed Nigerian-American author whose fiction – including Riot Baby, Beasts Made of Night, and the Panther in the Hive series – consistently engages with questions of power, race, and survival in extreme conditions. Inkosi is his first original screenplay and draws on his deep engagement with African and colonial history.

Jonathan Dorfman was born in Johannesburg and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand before building an international production career. His personal connection to the city's history and geography is central to the project's development.