AfricaIs aCountry

Design Short

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Design Short

By
Sean Jacobs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lhzd1vgtBk

Time to promote some continental filmmakers again. The young ones.

The organizers of Design Indaba, an annual design fair held in Cape Town (this year’s edition was last week), recently commissioned six local filmmakers to make short profiles of the country’s designers. Not an original idea, but the subjects are interesting. Here’s two of the films I like. The profile above is of illustrator and graphic designer Daniel Ting Chong. The film’s director is Alasdair McCulloch.

Here’s one more on graphic artist and rapper, Mr Fuzzy Slipperz by filmmaker Rio Allen:

You can watch all six short profiles here.

H/T Sean Drummond

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.