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After making headlines around the world in 2015, the miraculous rediscovery of baby Zephany Nurse was on everyone\u2019s lips, so much so that a film was made documenting the life story of Miche Solomons, known as Zephany.<\/p>\n
Hot from a successful release on the UK\u2019s streaming platform Paramount Plus, the \u201cGirl Taken\u201d documentary feature, which tells the South African story of the 1997 kidnapping of baby Zephany Nurse and subsequent recovery many years, has received thethumbs up from the British Media and audiences alike.<\/p>\n
The Cape Town-based saga of Zephany being found after being kidnapped from hospital, gripped the world and had media attention from the day she vanished.<\/p>\n
\u201cGirl Taken\u201d speaks of two parents whose baby was stolen at birth, who miraculously found her 17 years later, and who then lost her again.<\/p>\n On April 28, 1997, Morne and Celeste Nurse gave birth to their first baby, a girl whom they called Zephany. <\/p>\n Three days later, the baby was missing from her cot and was nowhere to be found. For 17 years they kept searching for her and celebrated her birthday with a big cake every year. <\/p>\n Until, by almost miraculous coincidence, their second daughter Cassidy enrolled in a new school early in 2015 and met someone who looked just like her \u2013 and whom DNA tests revealed to be the missing child.<\/p>\n The UK Media dubbed Zephany the South African Madeleine McCann, the British 4-year-old abducted from a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007.<\/p>\n \u201cGirl Taken\u201d will now be released on the big screen at the Labia in Cape Town and the Bioscope in Johannesburg from September 30.<\/p>\n Solomons told IOL Entertainment: \u201cI am so happy that audiences can view \u2018Girl Taken\u2019 on the big screen. I am especially happy for my parents, I hope it will be received with an open heart and that it will impact lives.\u201d<\/p>\n The film, directed by Cape Town filmmakers Francois Verster and Simon Wood and co-produced by Solsiu Films in Ireland, won the Best South African Documentary Award at the Durban International Film Festival in July.<\/p>\n Verster said he was amped that the film will be playing locally and in the origin of where the story events took place.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are extremely happy with the film having a cinema run in Cape Town and Johannesburg after its success at the Encounters South Africa International Documentary Festival in both cities, and that those who want to see it on the big screen will have another chance to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n The film is currently streaming on Paramount Plus in the UK and Germany. After its theatre run in South Africa from September 30, it is scheduled for local broadcast on M-Net in early 2023.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n