An incendiary piece of video art, more like a short film–of raids, profiling and state terrorism–done by director Romain Gravas, for a new M.I.A. joint, “Born Free.”
It was initially posted on Youtube yesterday, but taken down for “the violent and sexual images.” On Vimeo, not a mass video viewing site, it has had over half a million viewers since it went up yesterday.
I am dying to see this film, “Driving with Fanon,” by Steve Kwena Mokwena, a Johannesburg-based artist. (I first met Steve in London in 2003. Very talented man.) I should have a copy soon and will report back. Here’s the trailer:
Recently my man Lee Ursus introduced me to the Afrikaans poetry of Ronelda S. Kamfer. Born in 1981, Kamfer’s poetry reflects her split upbringing on a farm and in coloured townships in Cape Town.
Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach (and his band) performing the composition “Freedom Now!” Suite on a German TV channel in 1964. Thirty years later South Africans would all vote together for the first time in democratic elections on April 27-28, 1994. Today, of course, we celebrate the 16th anniversary of those elections. The struggle continues.
– Sean Jacobs
Africa’s World Cup
THE NEW SCHOOL, 66 WEST 12TH STREET. Room 510
Date: May 4, 2010
Time: 3-5 pm
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
The 2010 World Cup is historic: it will be the first time the tournament will be hosted on the African continent.
When FIFA, the world soccer governing body, awarded the World Cup to South Africa in May 2004, Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratic president spoke for a lot of his compatriots and millions on the continent when he exclaimed: “I feel like a 15 year old.”
Africa has historically been shunned by world football—viewed mainly as a cheap source of talent for Europe’s football leagues. Expectations are therefore high for what will be Africa’s first World Cup tournament.
The talks about trade opportunities between Iran and Zimbabwe during a visit to Zimbabwe by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is all just bombast and hides other sinister political motives (like vote buying in Zimbabwe’s elections by Life President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF). Of course, they’re not hiding it very well.
An Evening with Shelley Barry
Wednesday, April 28, 2o1o
At the next disTHIS!, South African filmmaker Shelley Barry will share a mixture of old, new and works-in-progress. Shelley, a wheelchair user as a result of taxi violence in her native country in 1996, made her frst film in 2003 while on a film scholarship in the United States.
Barry now runs twospinningwheels productions in South Africa. Her company focuses on bringing stories to the screen about those who are under-represented in mainstream media.
She often shoots her own films from the vantage point of her wheelchair, bringing a different cinematic angle to the big screen.
With less than 50 days to go before the start of the 2010 World Cup, Kenya-based journalist and author Steve Bloomfield has done a decent piece for Britian’s “The Independent” on the countdown to the tournament. My judgment is of course not clouded by him asking me for my opinion:
So far, the expected boost to tourism and foreign investment has yet to materialise, in part because influential football figures and journalists in Europe still have strong doubts that South Africa can host a successful tournament. Few of those concerns are valid, says Sean Jacobs, a South African professor of international relations and an avid football fan who writes a blog on culture and Africa (africasacountry.com). “South Africa has a long history of successfully hosting big tournaments. The Rugby World Cup was one year after the 1994 elections when things were much more tenuous. Whites were still waving the old flag, some were still armed and threatening war.” Since then, South Africa has successfully hosted the cricket World Cup, British Lions rugby tours and football’s Africa Cup of Nations. Last year, it hosted cricket’s Indian Premier League after the organisers decided it wasn’t safe enough to host it in India.
Read the piece–which also quotes more important people like my man Peter Alegi (the football historian and my partner in the blog Football is Coming Home) –here.
Some things I missed or could not give proper attention to this week:
* Apparently, “… Marlene Dumas, [the] South African-born artist whose work is sought by important collectors … has long kept a blacklist that prevents those she views as turning over her works too quickly from buying additional works by her.” I know, why am I posting this given that I don’t have money to by US$6 million paintings. [Arts Beat Blog]
* Kelefa Sanneh on whiteness in The New Yorker: “… It is a delicate race, always on the verge of being overrun or adulterated, dethroned or debunked. The supposed perfection of whiteness makes it vulnerable: every flaw and quirk, every tangled bloodline and degraded specimen, is seen as an existential threat, poised to undermine the whole project.” [The New Yorker]
Football historian Chris Bolsmann just sent me a note:
“… If you want to buy the Bafana [Bafana replica shirt] at a ‘reasonable’ price [in the UK; 35 British pounds it is] you get the replica without the team’s Protea logo. Or you pay an extortionate price for the one with the logo.“
But even more infuriating, according to Chris, is that Uhlsport, the German goalkeeper equipment manufacturer and sponsor of Bafana keeper Itumeleng Khune, has just released a new range of keeper equipment–with the Springbok logo plastered all over it.
