The Mtsweni family lives in a squatter camp in Mamelodi township outside Pretoria, South Africa’s capital. Seventeen year old Lerato, who goes by Moskito, tells young German director Benjamin Kahlmeyer: “It’s not a real city. It’s what we call a township, divided into many sections, like extensions and phases, just like in a science fiction movie.” About these ads
By Basia Lewandowska Cummings We British are very good at honoring the dead. Last Friday Prime Minister David Cameron, his deputy Nick Clegg et al attended the annual Remembrance Day ceremony; our political elite competed to appear most sombre, respectful. Central London was peppered with war memorials–heavy sculptures in dark metals, the lists of names […]
The late, great Egyptian director Youssef Chahine shot this drama/documentary/biography on Cairo for television in 1991. As brilliant and beautiful a depiction of the city as any, Chahine infused the story with his usual political narratives–power, wealth, poverty, racial diversity, corruption and love. It is truly the most fantastic portrayal of Cairo ever produced. Chahine was also […]
“The Uprising of Hangberg” is filmmaking at its incendiary best. Part agitprop piece, testimonies, campaign document, and popular history, the film recounts the violent events of September 2010 when municipal police on the orders of the Cape Town’s Democratic Alliance (DA)-run council invaded the favela on the edge of the Hangberg mountain in Houtbay, outside Cape […]
We’ve been following The Fader’s Pitch Perfect documentary series since the start of the World Cup two weeks ago. In episode 2, The Fader documentary team receives a “short history of SA dance pop” from Johannesburg’s “genre-defying” duo, Dirty Paraffin. I’ve never heard of these guys before but after watching this video, I’m hooked. That […]
I am not sure about the ethics involved in making this film or how truthful the experiences of British journalist Sorious Samura are, but “Living with Illegals,” his 50 minute documentary (made for British television) is depressing viewing. To investigate undocumented migration from Africa to the European Union, Samura (who is originally from Sierra Leone […]
Part 1, above, of the Dutch TV documentary film, “Staying Alivein Joburg.” The film is limited in its focus–its primarily a walk through inner city Johannesburg ahead of the 2010 World Cup. We get no sense of life in the city’s richer, and whiter, northern suburbs. But it is definitely a must see and a thousand times […]
