conversations on a sunday afternoon

Tagged "most important movie of South African cinema", this docu-fiction by Khalo Matabane is a fascinating journey through the identity of those who populate South Africa today, and  also a reminder that a time when many South Africans are leaving – or considering leaving the country – many people from other countries are drawn here in search of a better future.

The movie follows a young black South African looking for a woman called Fatima. This quest to find the somalian woman he used to see in the park every sunday, and to tell her story, leads him to the encounter of other refugees and immigrants, taking you through downtown Johannesburg with stop in a deportation camp. The result is a collection of points of view towards the country that is housing them, and their journey in finding an identity in their displaced situation.

You begin to realize, listening to the fascinating, eclectic cast of characters,  that had that movie been filmed in Paris or London, you would have come across a similar selection of displaced people. Which says a lot about immigration as a global concept. 

Watching this movie, and being where I am now, witnessing what is happening in South Africa raised a lot of question and thoughts about immigration and identity, but I leave that to another post as it would be too long and the movie his first and foremost a humanist film, not an intellectual one.

All I can say is I wish it could be played, not just in South Africa, but over the world, because it touches issues that really embody the world we live in today, something I tried to do in my own small way (listen to Fish and Chips and Not of this Planet in the playlist, or click here).

identity

I just found a paragraph of a very good book I red when doing my final major on cultural identity:

"I was hanging around. The question was continually tormenting me, the traditionnal question that is raised in my island, between friends, between people who meet, among all.
Where are your parents from?
Mine are not slaves but what would be the response of those who submitted their feet on a land of slave.
I was hanging around. Troubled deeply."
The anthropophage tree, Jean-Luc Raharimanana.

This book is a huge inspiration in terms of what I want to express through my work, and what I've experienced in the past 4 years.