Benny's first venture into the world of films was a financial and filming disaster and was never completed. 

During winter and spring of 1967, The Hep Stars went to Africa in an attempt to film something to compete with the Beatles A Hard Day's Night - the self-produced but never finished Habari Safari. It had been hoped that a trip to Nairobi and a couple of weeks in a film studio would provide sufficient suitable material to make the film. However, due to serious financial difficulties, technical problems and a non-existent story, the film was never completed. 

Photographer Åke Borglund had started filming in February 1967 and yet the script wasn't even written until five months later. The group ended up with 5,000m of unusable film and debts of 280,000 Swedish Kronor owed to their sponsor - record company chief, Åke Gerhard. 

The loose plot of the film was something like this: The Hep Stars are in Africa to find the original 'glook' (a toy, a kind of Gonk). They land in Nairobi with the airplane and start looking for it. They end up in some sort of small tribe, where they are kindly greeted as big guests. The guide (called Ernie) who accompanies them on the trip tries to steal the glook, which they have in their property. And he flees when he sees the tribe's anger. He ends up in a savannah (not really - instead some place just outside Uppsala!), and all of a sudden Hep Stars turns up again. In the end they get to have the glook in some strange way and they return home to Sweden." 

One Hep Stars song emerged from the project, the African folk-tinged single, Malaika released with at least two different covers. 
Hep Stars - Malaika - cover 1
Hep Stars - Malaika - cover 2

On 21 July 2004 as part of a TV series called Musikbyrån (Music Bureau), the programme Hep Stars in Afrika!  featured interviews with members of The Hep Stars (Svenne Hedlund and Christer Petterson [no Benny]), and others (editor Ulf Neidemar, Gunnar Ernblad, Thomas Nordlund and Gunilla Gersten [who was to write a book/articles about the trip]) who talked about the making of the movie. Incredible archive footage was shown which we frankly never thought we'd see. A lot of the footage is without sound or with bad sound and clearly filmed on hand-held super 8 cine film. 

Benny on Habari Safari: "It was an expensive trip. We had with us a Danish photographer and five or six technicians. In addition we had the director of our recently founded production company Hep House with us - and he had, for safety's sake, the company of his wife! We also freighted along with us from Denmark 500lb of rails. We were there for 14 days while the director of the film and the president of our company stayed an additional week. Later we went to Denmark for 10 days for some extra takes. At this point the film should have been finished. And of course we did have 5,000m of film. But there was no story and without a story one cannot attempt to promote a feature film."

Known filming dates:
C. Tuesday 21 February 1967: The Hep Stars left for Kenya.
Tuesday 7 March: The Hep Stars returned from Africa.
Between c. 5 April 1967 and c. 12 April: Copenhagen.
Tuesday 9 May 1967: A news report was filmed, showing how The Hep Stars “complete filming of their first movie on and around Djurgårdsfärjan [the Djurgården ferry]”. Obviously, it wasn’t really completed on that day.
Friday 12 May: Scenes shot at Uppsalaslätten (The Uppsala Plain). 
 

Malaika
Malaika, nakupenda Malaika
Malaika, nakupenda Malaika
Nami nifanyeje, kijana mwenzio
Nashindwa na mali sina, we,
Ningekuoa Malaika
Nashindwa na mali sina, we,
Ningekuoa Malaika
Kidege, hukuwaza kidege
Kidege, hukuwaza kidege
Nami nifanyeje, kijana mwenzio
Nashindwa na mali sina, we
Ningekuoa kidege
Nashindwa na mali sina, we
Ningekuoa kidege
Pesa zasumbua roho yangu
Pesa zasumbua roho yangu
Nami nifanyeje, kijana mwenzio
Ningekuoa Malaika
Nashndwa na mali sina, we
Ningekuoa Malaika
ANGEL
Angel, I love you angel
What should I do, your lover
I am defeated by money
I don't have any
I would marry you, angel
Money is troubling my soul
Little bird
I always dream of you little bird

Hep Stars in Africa

Musikbyrån 
Stockholm : SVT, SVT2, 2004-02-25 22:30-23:30 
Namn
Personer Cat Bengtsson (producent)
Utgivning
År/datum 2004-02-25 22:30-23:30 
Kanal SVT2
Utgivning Stockholm : SVT, SVT2
Utgivningsland Sverige
Matrisnummer 30-04/2001-003
Anmärkningar
Anmärkning Del 3:10
Tablåinnehåll Sveriges Televisions musikmagasin. Reportage och möten i musikvärlden. Programledaren Magnus Broni lotsar tittarna i nuet och genom musikhistorien. Del 3 av 10. Hep Stars i Afrika Beatles gjorde det. Hep Stars försökte. I mitten av 1960-talet erövrade popmusiken inte bara musikvärlden. Med hjälp av käcka manus skulle popstjärnorna bli skådespelare. Eller åtminstone få spela sina låtar på film ... När Beatles åstadkom tonårshysteri i biosalongen med sin film "A hard day's night" ville Sveriges då hetaste band inte vara sämre. Under vintern och våren 1967 reste Hep Stars dit ingen popfilmsmakare vågat sätta sin fot innan - till Afrika. Bland noshörningar, schakaler och hyenor skulle Svenne Hedlund se till att drömmen om den stora svenska popfilmen bli sanning. Väl hemkomna från inspelningen hann verkligheten, som så ofta, i kapp den stora drömmen. Ekonomiska problem, tappad inspiration och tekniskt strul gjorde att filmen Hep Stars i Afrika i stort sett bara samlade damm i ett arkiv. Fram tills nu. Musikbyrån har samlat bandmedlemmar och skådespelare för att prata om filmen med ett av Sveriges första och största popband. (Även i SVT2 28/2 och 29/2)
Musik/Dans Musik Pop, rock
Anm. uppl/utgivning Repris 2004-02-28 01:00-02:00 SVT 2
Repris 2004-02-29 13:00-14:00 SVT 2
Repris 2004-02-25 22:30-23:30 SVT Europa
Repris 2004-02-28 01:10-02:05 SVT Europa
Repris 2004-02-29 13:00-14:00 SVT Europa
Speltid 00:58:00:00
Arkiv
Leverantör SVT
Exemplar
VHS TV04-06481 
Antal enheter 1
Ljud stereo
Färg färg
Leverantör SVT
Arkivnummer TV04-06481 
DVCPRO TVB-20040293 
Antal enheter 1
Ljud stereo
Färg färg
Leverantör SVT
Arkivnummer TVB-20040293 
DVCPRO TVB-20040296 
Antal enheter 1
Ljud stereo
Färg färg
Leverantör SVT
Arkivnummer TVB-20040296 
MPEG-1 ZS_svt_svt2_2004-02-25 
Filbeskrivning 1,5 Mbit/s, MPEG-1 layer 2, 48 kHz, 128 kbit/s
Arkivnummer ZS_svt_svt2_2004-02-25

Thanks to Malin Westerberg, Carl Magnus Palm, Jan Bach, Robin Andersson, Grant Whittingham and Gustav Sandberg c/o ABBAMAIL Extra information from ABBA Report, Issue 18 (Autumn 2000). Special thanks to Yuri Kobzev Jozsef.
YouTube link c/o Rosa Mannen