US-based South African filmmaker Lodi Matsetela is the fourth filmmaker to answer Efrika’s five questions.
Vincent Moloi: On the other side of the equator
On the other side of the equator is the first of two (or more) travel reflections by South African documentary filmmaker Vincent Moloi.
For years I have been reluctant to write, especially about my travels. I know it’s strange but writing feels intrusive, it disturbs the peace of my thoughts. Perhaps I’m more private than I admit. Whatever my personality, a visit to Douala in Cameroon broke my phobia of writing. I’m on the other side of the equator, far from Johannesburg where I live. In the land of the legendary Roger Miller – excuse me, the GREAT legendary Roger Milla – and I feel like an indomitable lion.
LITERATURE: From Africa with love… Writers’ reflections on love: no6 Lola Shoneyin
Whether it’s a stranger’s smile that makes your heart stand still or the sweet agony of two bodies moving together, or the peace of a bright night as hands entwine, love comes in different forms. In a weekly six part series, fiction writer and head of Writers Studio creative writing school, Samuel Kolawole has spoken to an eclectic group of talented African authors, who have shared their musings on love.
LITERATURE: From Africa with love… Writers’ reflections on love: no5 Ivor Hartmann
In a six-part weekly series Efrika’s Samuel Kolawole speaks to six African authors about love – that which sustains us every day and without which we cannot live. The fifth writer featured is the versatile Zimbabwean writer Ivor Hartmann.
LITERATURE: From Africa with love… Writers’ reflections on love: no4 Ahmed Maiwada
Samuel Kolawole speaks to six brilliant African authors, who share their musings on love – that which sustains us every day and without which we cannot live.
FILM: iREP International Documentary Film Festival in Lagos – Re-membering the Dismembered
Now in its third year, IREP International Documentary Film Festival took place at Freedom Park, Lagos between March 21st and 24th.
LITERATURE: From Africa with love….writers’ reflections on love: no3 Zukiswa Wanner
Whether it’s a stranger’s smile that makes your heart stand still or the sweet agony of two bodies moving together or the peace of a bright night as hands entwine, love comes in different forms. In a weekly six part series, Samuel Kolawole speaks to six of Africa’s finest authors, who share their musings on love: that which sustains us every day and without which we cannot live.
To date, the series has featured Lauri Kubuitsile and Victor Dlamini. Here is what our third author has to say on the subject. Continue reading
LITERATURE: From Africa with love… Writers’ reflections on love: no2 Victor Dlamini
Whether it’s a stranger’s smile that makes your heart stand still or the sweet agony of two bodies moving together or the peace of a bright night as hands entwine, love comes in different forms. In the second part of our weekly six part series, Samuel Kolawole speaks to the next in an eclectic group of Africa’s finest authors who share their musings on love: that which sustains us every day and without which we cannot live.
LITERATURE: Me, osmosis and Chinua Achebe
I always feel stupid when people speak to me of Chinua Achebe. I get nervous. Feel as if I haven’t read enough of his books. Being a Nigerian and a writer I should have read them all, yes? And even the ones I have read I should have read them more than once and marked up the work with red ink and vigorous notes in the margins of the page. I should refer to the books constantly with whole paragraphs memorised. There are many people who do. I’m not one of them. And I’m certain I‘m a poorer writer (person) for this omission. But the wonderful thing is that Chinua Achebe belongs to that crop of writer whose influence leaps beyond his written pages. Regardless of whether I read all of them or not I can recite, like a poem, all the titles of his fiction.
LITERATURE: From Africa with love… Writers’ reflections on love: no1 Lauri Kubuitsile
Whether it’s a stranger’s smile that makes your heart stand still or the sweet agony of two bodies moving together or the peace of a bright night as hands entwine, love comes in different forms. In a new weekly six part series, Samuel Kolawole speaks to an eclectic group of Africa’s finest authors to share their musings on love: that without which we cannot live and sustains us every day.
MUSIC MIX: The Best of Afrosynth
For the past few years Afrosynth has been uncovering lost gems from South Africa’s thriving but isolated music industry of the 1980s. Afrosynth’s 11 mixes to date have offered a new generation of music lovers from around the world a glimpse of what was on offer at the time. Efrika is proud to bring you this Best of Afrosynth compilation featuring DJ Okapi’s favourite tracks from each of these mixes.
FILM: A family affair – efrika at FESPACO
In 1969 a group of filmmakers in need of an outlet for their work, started what would become the world’s biggest African film festival. The first edition of the pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) featured 23 films from five countries. Forty-four years and twenty-two editions later the world famous film festival attracts thousands of filmmakers, distributors and other industry players as well as cinema lovers and tourists from Africa and beyond.
Professionals and audiences remain loyal to the event, which continues to gather the members of the growing and diverse family of African cinema. No one says it better than the President of the 2013 feature film jury Euzhan Palcy, who declared, “When FESPACO calls, you come”.
FILM: Celebrating FESPACO 2013 with Five Questions For Moussa Sene Absa
On the eve of the 23rd Pan-African Film & TV Festival of Ouagadougou, otherwise known as FESPACO, efrika asks Senegalese filmmaker Moussa Sene Absa the fundamentals about his life in film. Absa’s documentary Yoolé (The Sacrifice) is competing at the festival which runs from the 23rd February to the 2nd March.
MUSIC: Interview & Review: Spoek Mathambo, Future Sound of Mzansi
After two years of relentless jetting across Europe and the US Spoek Mathambo has been back home again in South Africa. The prince of global electro took a studio break to talk about upping the game in SA.
LITERATURE: Book Review – Now that you’ve been excused….Victor Ehikhamenor’s Excuse Me!
LITERATURE: books and writers to look out for in 2013
This year is looking good for African writing. We should expect new discoveries and fresh voices to emerge from the continent as there are still stories yet to be told whilst those who have already proven themselves will likely wax stronger. efrika’s Samuel Kolawole considers writers who will rock the literary scene this year.
FILM: African film makers at Sundance Film Festival 2013
Among the films selected for the 2013 edition of Sundance Film Festival a small but important selection were made by filmmakers of African origin.
FILM: Films to look out for in 2013
We have selected eight films from five African countries to look out for in 2013 – the year of the 23rd edition of FESPACO – the bi-annual pan-African film and television festival of Ouagadougou.
EXCLUSIVE: M.anifest
The Multi-talented M.anifest has had a meteoric couple of years having worked with Damon Albarn and Tony Allen on the ‘Rocket Juice to The Moon’ project and breaking the US with his second album, ‘Immigrant Chronicle: coming to America’. Spending more time in Ghana this year and focusing on African audiences led to a nomination for the 2012 Channel O Music Video Awards held in Soweto where we caught up with him to walk the streets and chew the fat.
FILM: Five Questions For Taghreed Elsanhouri
In a regular feature efrika asks African film-makers the fundamentals about their lives in film. Sudanese film-maker Taghreed Elsanhouri is the second filmmaker up. Continue reading
FILM: The Colours of the Nile International Film Festival through the eyes of Congolese-French filmmaker Claude Haffner
I landed at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa at 8 am on Tuesday the 6th of November 2012. My flight was one hour late, and I still had to spend at least one hour sorting out my visa.
Despite my worry that the person sent to fetch me at the airport would give up and leave without me, my heart still skipped a beat in excitement at the thought that my feet would soon touch the soil of Ethiopia – the cradle of human kind according to many. I collected my luggage and walked towards the exit. The driver was there and took me to hotel Tizeze. As it turned out the guests of the first edition of Colours of the Nile International Film Festival were also the very first guests of the hotel, which was still under construction.
LITERATURE: Professor Anton Harber on Mampoer Shorts
To mark the launch of a new strand covering the literature of the continent and diaspora – fiction, non-fiction and poetry – efrika.tv’s Literature Editor the novelist Yewande Omotoso speaks to Professor Anton Harber about Mampoer Shorts / mampoer.co.za, a new website offering in-depth, investigative journalism examining critical South Africa social and political issues. Harber, a former editor of SA’s Mail & Guardian newspaper and currently Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand discusses the media landscape in SA and globally, paying for content on-line and the importance of long-form journalism.
LITERATURE: Garden City Literary Festival, Nigeria
One of the pleasures of attending a literary festival is that you become empowered, not the kind that is every NGO’s mission statement these days, a different kind. You have the power to choose, to decide what to participate in amongst a wide range of programmes – that blissful freedom of choosing whether to browse through shelves at the fair or listen to an erudite bunch discuss intellectual issues at a panel discussion, to simply meet people who share the joy of reading or just to roam between rooms, between events, neither here nor there.
RADIO: From The Cradle ‘Dance Afrika’
The General and The Smiling Lion return with the second From The Cradle and an invitation to the dancefloor. Dance is more than just a pick up line, more than just shakin’ what your mama gave you. Dance is a prescription for health, a meditation for livity. Between the devil and the deep blue sea dance drowns us in a sweat of passion and possibility.
FILM: Five Questions For Akin Omotoso
In the first of a regular feature efrika asks African film-makers the fundamentals about their lives in film. Nigerian / South African film-maker Akin Omotoso is first up.
FEATURE: Celebrating the making of Maputo at the Mafalala Festival
What Sophiatown was to Mzansi or Harlem to New York, in Maputo the neighbourhood of Mafalala has over the course of decades given rise to some of Mozambique’s leading figures, from the musicians who forged the country’s signature marrabenta sound and poets who led the fight against Portuguese colonialism, to its sports icons and post-independence leaders.
GALLERY: Cape Town World Music Festival
Have a look at the 12 photos.
Zara Julius reports back from the first Cape Town World Music Festival. Bholoja, Oliver Mtukudzi and Sylvestre Kabassidi joined Pops Muhamed, Spoek Mathambo and The Brother Moves On in a collision of organic and electronic, seasoned and break-through.
NEW RADIO SHOW: The Nomad arrives
Welcome to The Nomad, efrika.tv’s new monthly contemporary music show serving up the best of the tracks recommended by our contributors across Africa and the diaspora. Many Nomads will guest-present the show and first up is efrika’s No1 musicologist Shoni Lethole with prime cuts of hip hip, azonto, desert rock, afrobeat funk, bass-heavy house and Khartoum beats.
POETRY: @PoetryAfrica, Durban trending again
The prolific Centre for Creative Arts of the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban South Africa is not just the home of the Durban International Film Festival (and the associated Durban FilmMart and Talent Campus), Time of the Writer and JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival. It is also the originator of Poetry Africa, which ran for the 16th time between the 15th and 20th October in Durban with satellite events in Cape Town, Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe between the 6th and 13th October.
GALLERY: Journeys in sound, Salym Fayad in search of the source
Have a look at the 32 photos.
Salym is a Colombian journalist who landed in South Africa in 2008. For the next four years, and counting, he has been travelling, reporting, taking photographs and collecting sounds in different regions of Africa, exploring the cultural links between this … Continue reading