South/African Shorts 3
World Premiere SA Premiere S/African Festival Guest/Q&A Shorts
V&A 4: Sun 10 June / 2.30pm + Q&As
The Art of Healing
This tenderly directed short film provides a portrait of Mozambican textile artist Lizette Chirrime, who was abused as a child. As part of her healing process, Chirrime started upcycling hessian sacks that are normally used for storing and transporting grain. As she stitched the beautifully decorated formerly discarded sacks, she was also stitching herself together: “I was not only recycling the sack – I was recycling myself”.
Iphepha (The Newspaper)
This is a behind-the-scenes look at the newsroom of I’solezwe isiXhosa, the first isiXhosa newspaper in South Africa. Director Merrick illuminates the challenges and profound rewards of starting a newspaper, and highlights the critical and often overlooked role that local journalism plays in a community.
Little Brown Girl
This hybrid documentary explores the ways women of colour navigate the available modes of representation offered by the media and world around them. Using mixed media and candid interviews, Little Brown Girl highlights the need for meaningful representation and a new Afrocentric brown positivity that expands on and compliments the global movement we are experiencing today. An understated and surreal film from an exciting new director.
Looking for Ned
This moving short documentary is both an informal, cross-sectional portrait of the Ukwanda Puppet and Design Collective, and a tribute to Ncedile Daki, one of their members who was killed in 2017. The large-scale puppets on display – a pantsula dancer, two mourning elephants, and a rhino – are fascinating to watch, while the interviews with the collective are warm-hearted and inspiring.
Red Zone Paramedics
Red Zone Paramedics is a documentary film about an ambulance crew working the night shift on New Years Eve in Mitchells Plain, an area of Cape Town with high levels of gang related violence. Long granular shots winding through darks streets while navigating the visceral complexities of delivering healthcare in a city of complex contradictions – this is a film about the everyday experiences of life on the road.
