The history of popular music in South Africa continues to interest documentary filmmakers. Of recent offerings two films stand out: “Punk in Africa,” about the history of the genre in Southern Africa since the 1970s (word is it’s a bit unfocused), and Daniel Yon’s beautiful film about jazz singer Sathima Benjamin, “Sathima’s Windsong.” I’ve just gotten […]
The International Film Festival in Rotterdam (running till February 5) comes with a neat feature that allows you to browse the selected films per continent. The festival has a surprising amount of 34 African films lined up (that doesn’t happen often at European film festivals). Less surprising, and a bit disappointing, is that out of the 34 films 23 are Egyptian.
Yes it is that time of year. “The Best of 2009″ lists. Spin Earth, the web-based project of music magazine, “Spin,”(it relies on “300 cultural correspondents in 75 major cities spanning all continents”) has published a list of “the top documentaries.” Two films about African music made the cut: “Fokofpolisiekar” about the postapartheid Afrikaans punk-rock […]
