At Encounters :: Under African Skies

Under African Skies | Joe Berlinger | USA | 2011 | 102min

Eminently likeable interviewees including Oprah Winfrey, Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones, Whoopi Goldberg and David Byrne extol the virtues of Paul Simon’s landmark 1986 worldbeat classic Graceland while the diminutive songwriter assembles his even more endearing South African collaborators Ray Phiri, Bakithi Kumalo, Isaac Mtshali, Joseph Shabalala and Barney Rachabane (among others) for a 25th anniversary gig in Joburg that, apart from the 702 shout-out in the trailer above, happened seemingly as stealthily as Simon’s visit back in the 80s. At the heart of the film lies a congenial debate between Simon and former Artists Against Apartheid activist turned TV personality Dali Tambo concerning the sanctity of cultural sanctions in which Simon gibes the sanctimony of the ANC concerning politics and the arts by saying “you’re going fuck the artists like all kinds of governments.” Tambo, sporting Daliesque whiskers, holds the party line but instigates a conciliatory hug.

At Encounters :: The African Cypher

The African Cypher | Brian Little | South Africa | 2012 | 89min

“W-O-W!” It’s a line from the film and a fair description of what Brian Little has achieved with his sophomore feature-length documentary, The African Cypher. Like its predecessor Fokofpolisiekar: Forgive Them for They Know Not What They Do (2009), the film glazes its subject in hyper-realism and sees Fly on the Wall mapping out territory at the intersection of reality TV and creative documentary. The film is essentially a mix-tape of dynamic dance sequences filmed on location and bathed in epic audio that culminates in a televisual dance-off at the Red Bull Beat Battle. The narrative is driven by less remarkable interviews touching on identity/redemption/salvation through dance but pulls off a turn-around crescendo with a sublime scene that taps into the universal truth of friendship and loyalty. While the word “cypher” in the film’s title refers to a circle of dancers, it also speaks of our voyeuristic compulsion to posit meaning. Although the ethnographic dimension of The African Cypher expresses itself most openly through the director’s voice-overs, the film operates in documentary territory that is unashamedly less interested in observation than cultivated subjectivity.

At Encounters :: A Common Purpose

A Common Purpose | Mitzi Goldman | Australia | 2011 | 75min
 

 Andrea Durbach & Justice Bekebeke

It’s 1985 in a Northern Cape Town town made socio-political pressure-cooker. An “illegal” gathering meets bullish, trigger-happy police and mob violence sees 25 people collectively charged with the murder of a policeman. A Common Purpose is both a reunion narrative documenting lawyer Andrea Durbach’s return to South Africa (having emigrated to Australia) to visit former death row clients-cum-friends as well as a legal drama that exposes the Kafkaesque legislation of the times. The film follows the development of the case and, while pointing to the State’s myopic desire to quash dissent, acknowledges but steers clear of the ethical conundrum of mob or retributional violence. It also features an interview with journalist John Carlin, whose book about the 1995 Rugby World Cup sets the cynicism of “Upington 25” defendant turned Independent Electoral Commission officer, Justice Bekebeke, in contrast with Madiba’s crafty plans for national catharsis. Carlin’s Playing the Enemy (2008) was adapted for the screen in the form of Clint Eastwood’s Invictus (2009).

At Encounters :: Jumu’a | Port Nolloth

Jumu’a: The Gathering | Dylan Valley | South Africa | 2012 | 48min

Just when you thought you knew everything about Cape Town, along comes Dylan Valley with a story about a mosque established by a Scottish Shaykh and a community of Muslim hipsters who are into riding waves and drinking artesanal coffee. Jumu’a: The Gathering is not only a window into Muizenberg’s Murabitun community, touching on the characteristics that set it apart from how Islam is more broadly practiced in Cape Town, but also a meditation of the socially cohesive nature of faith communities and the importance of the support mechanisms they provide. What emerges is a picture of an inclusive Islamic movement with spiritual values and practices that are as ancient and universal as they are contemporary and idiosyncratic.

Port Nolloth: Between a Rock and a Hard Place | Felix Seuffert | South Africa | 2012 | 32min

It’s no surprise that the Port Nolloth would appeal to a filmmaker with the eye of a photographer. Hemmed between fierce Atlantic and arid hinterland while negotiating dense fog and endless open skies, the Northern Cape frontier town makes for a beguiling canvas. Yet Port Nolloth: Between a Rock and a Hard Place delivers more than just eye candy. And while the film’s three character sketches document the town’s peculiar infatuation with diamonds, a feeling of liminality pervades, speaking to themes like masculinity, wealth, status and our relationship to higher powers like corporations, God and fate.

At Encounters :: On the Edge | Between Heaven & Hell

On the Edge | Isy India Geronimo | South Africa | 2012 | 44min

An indictment of the way homeless people are treated by South African police, On the Edge confronts audiences with the unsettling reality of life of the streets of inner city Johannesburg. The film also underlines the vulnerability of disenfranchised foreigners to human-rights abuses and even sees filmmaker Isy India Geronimo, an American lawyer chosen for a clerkship at the South African Constitutional Court in 2011, being incarcerated on an immigration offence as retribution for bringing the police to task. Geronimo's personal narrative frames the film but her Constitutional Court experience and legal knowledge as well as her own experience of being an "outsider" in South Africa sadly remain on the margins. And while the film gives a voice to victims and advocates the support provided by NGOs and churches, the behaviour of the SAPS is passed off as the institutionalised legacy of the SAP.

Between Heaven & Hell | Clifford Bestall | South Africa | 2012 | 48min

In 1989, songwriter Johannes Kerkorrel implored listeners to give their hearts and uncertain futures to Hillbrow. If Between Heaven & Hell is anything to go by, these are the commodities that the notorious inner-city Johannesburg neighborhood is still trading on. Commissioned by Al Jazeera Witness, filmmaker Clifford Bestall's story is pivoted on a boxing gym, a former champ turned trainer living its basement, two women boxers under his wing and a night-club owner cast as fight promoter. And then there's Bernice, an elderly Jewish lady as tangentially connected to the narrative as she is to the people in her neighborhood. As the title suggests, Hillbrow emerges as a place of exile where survivors strive for the dangling carrot of deliverance.

Achmat Sabera :: Hand-Crafted Cape Instruments

Although artistic license renders Achmat Sabera as a youthful man sans spectacles and wispy grey beard, it is fitting that a craftsman who occupies the humble wings of Cape Town’s dazzling carnival should be inadvertently celebrated by our national postal service. Based on a photograph by John Edwin Mason, 2011’s “Ghoema Drum-Maker” postage stamp was part of a series exploring historic links between South Africa and Indonesia.

2010 and 2011 brought much due attention to Achmat Sabera and his craft. On the heels of appearing in Mason’s book of photographs and short essays entitled One Love Ghoema Beat: Inside the Cape Town Carnival, Achmat Sabera was featured in Iziko’s Ghoema & Glitter: New Year Carnival in Cape Town exhibition at the Castle of Good Hope. He also shared his trade secrets on camera, directing the creators of the documentary film Mama Goema through a behind-the-scenes journey of the drum-making process.

Like the hand-crafted instruments he creates and services for discerning minstrels, Achmat Sabera is a Cape Town original. He has donated drums to Mac McKenzie’s Cape Town Goema Orchestra as well as multi-instrumentalist Hilton Schilder and welcomes their application in any musical pursuit. Like any old-school artisan, however, he isn’t inclined to dabble in the arena of modern communications and digital ditribution. Until he does, if you’d like to invest in a Sabera “gamie,” you'll have to climb into the Cape Town goema wormhole and follow your ears.

Derek Gripper :: One Night on Earth (2012)

In a culture bent on compartmentalising its musicians, guitarist Derek Gripper is a slippery character. Here’s a guy who understands that a pigeonhole is not an enclosure but rather a place that a bird comes back to when it’s not busy flying. And why not come back to it? After all, if you don’t understand how a box works, how can you possibly think outside it? And who said anything about coming back to the same box? And perhaps some strategic wall removals won’t bring the whole structure down. Or will they? I guess these are the risks one has to take to bottle the sound of water or catch fish in a tangled net.

Coming on the heels of 2011’s The Sound of Water, which the guitarist self-effacingly describes as an album “that didn’t win a SAMA award” while neglecting to claim kudos for its nomination, Derek Gripper launched One Night on Earth: Music from the Strings of Mali at the Old Slave Church (Long Street, Cape Town) on Saturday 12 May 2012. Both playful as well as poignant, Night on Earth sees the unprecedented “translation” of West African kora music to solo acoustic guitar and features the compositions of Mali’s legendary Toumani Diabaté, who performed at the same, sublime venue in 2009. The album also features compositions by fellow Malians Ali Farka Touré and Ballaké Sissoko as well as French cellist Vincent Ségal.

Although this thrilling and highly-accessible instrumental outing merits attention, Derek Gripper seems less concerned about courting mainstream criticism than using the democratic tools of new media to build a community around his innovations. Released on his home-spun label New Cape Records, Night on Earth forgoes hard copies in favour of digital distribution on a “name your price” basis. Moreover, downloadable guitar tablature scores are available on Derek Gripper’s personal website, which also provides other useful guitar resources and explains his Montessori-inspired method of guitar training. “The only difference between the music of Bach and the music of Toumani Diabaté,” writes open-source advocate Derek Gripper, “is that Toumani’s music does not exist in the type of score format that allows another musicians to actually play the music themselves.”

Photo (First Edition CD Album Art) © Bernard Descamps