AfricaIs aCountry

"The creative street vibes of South Africa"

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

"The creative street vibes of South Africa"

By
Sean Jacobs

On Saturday,  26 March at the Swedish CinemAfrica Festival the film directors Teddy Goitom and Benjamin Taft of Stocktown TV will premiere their ode to new South African hipsters:”Stocktown South African Roadmovie,” a 28 minute film that “sets out to capture the creative street vibes of South Africa.”  Some of the hipster acts featured in the film include heavy metal band Ree-burth, photographer Musa Nxumalo, Johannesburg”style setters” Smarteez, video gamers label 2bop, rappers Die Getuies [The Witnesses], filmmaker Ebrahim Hajee, and the music of Dirty Paraffin and Gazelle. More information and updates here and here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6qbZ5r0Se0

* “The first Stocktown documentary series was produced in 2003: a collage of streetculture and urban inventions from Japan, USA, Australia and Europe.” For Africa, Stocktown has also done editions for Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Ghana.

Via Samra Ghermay

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Reading List: Barbara Boswell

While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

An annual awakening

In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.