Africa Is a Country

The Black Atlantis

The Black Atlantis

By
Steffan Horowitz

The negative effects of tourism, globalization, and commercialization in Zanzibar.

From the poster art for Kibwe Tavares' "Jonah."

The Future Weird is a monthly series focused on films by directors from Africa and the global south.The series foregrounds films which imagine the future from a non-Western perspective.  I have been trying to attend as many of The Future Weird’s screenings as possible in recent months.  It is organized by Okayafrica’s Derica Shields and Africa is a Country’s Megan Eardley. The most recent installment was entitled “Black Atlantis” and featured a number of shorts that were linked by the common theme of water. The short that stood out the most for me was British architect-turned-filmmaker, Kibwe Tavares’ Jonah.

“Jonah” explores the effects of tourism, globalization, and commercialization in Zanzibar. Here’s the synopsis:

Mbwana and his best friend Juma are two young men with big dreams. These dreams become reality when they photograph a gigantic fish leaping out of the sea and their small town blossoms into a tourist hot-spot as a result. But for Mbwana, the reality isn’t what he dreamed – and when he meets the fish again, both of them forgotten, ruined and old, he decides only one of them can survive. Jonah is a big fish story about the old and the new, and the links and the distances between them.

Here’s the film:

With solid cinematography, dazzling visual effects, and intermittent humor, “Jonah” shows us a Zanzibar of the near-future that has become a “seedy, capitalist tourist trap.” The short was in part inspired by Hemmingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” as well as a trip Tavares took to East Africa (the film was originally supposed to be set in Lamu, Kenya). The filmmaker’s previous short, “Robots of Brixton,” was about a similarly dystopic future and acts as a kind of re-contextualization of the 1981 Brixton Riots. The short film took home the Special Jury Award for Animation Direction from Sundance in 2012 and is certainly worth watching. Kibwe Tavares is one of the leaders of the UK-based film and animation studio, Factory Fifteen.

Further Reading

A power crisis

Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.

Cinematic universality

Fatou Cissé’s directorial debut meditates on the uncertain fate and importance of Malian cinema amidst the growing dismissiveness towards the humanities across the world.

The meanings of Heath Streak

Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.

Victorious

After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?

The magic man

Chris Blackwell’s long-awaited autobiography shows him as a romantic rogue; a risk taker whose life compass has been an open mind and gift to hear and see slightly into the future.

How to think about colonialism

Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.

More than just a flag

South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.

Resistance is a continuous endeavor

For more than 75 years, Palestinians have organized for a liberated future. Today, as resistance against Israeli apartheid intensifies, unity and revolutionary optimism has become the main infrastructure of struggle.

Paradise forgotten

While there is much to mourn about the passing of legendary American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, we should hold a place for his bold statement-album against apartheid South Africa.