Mpumelelo Mcata

Exiled, yet internationally celebrated Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai's demons come to life as he tries to flee South Africa following increasingly fractious experiences on the Johannesburg art scene. His greatest demon “Black Guilt” is one he can never shake off, this burden of having to speak for his people. But Is this responsibility really a burden at all, or is it actually a superpower? Either way, will Kudzi ever be President of His Own State of Being?

Christina Mureti, an impetuous police officer from the city, is transferred to a small desert town in Namibia where she uncovers a series of grizzly animal sacrifices. Then a German farmer is found hung on the same tree where Christina’s ancestors were hung a century ago during Germany’s colonial war with the Herero. Only when Christina begins to learn about her people’s history and embraces some of its cultural wisdom is she able to solve the case.

Film Festival Film is a movie shot over a weekend at the Durban International Film Festival, South Africa, in July 2018 by the underground South African collective Medu African Film Ensemble (aka Medu AF). With a sense of mischief and minimal resources pooled together by its contributors, the film tells the story of Fanon – a Black female filmmaker – beset by her demons ten floors up in an oceanside hotel, gazing out over African shores during the hermetically-sealed weirdness that is the world of a film festival. Using elements of fiction and documentary, the film follows Fanon as she wrestles with what the film industry expects her to be, and not to be, as she readies herself to pitch her first film.