FAMILY MATTERS: TRILOGY

documentary films (2021)

Family Matters is a series of short films that explore the diverse stories of 4 families in South Africa. It thinks through the complexity behind the poster tag of “diversity” as we grapple with what it might mean to have sustainable, meaningful & dignified self-determination in the wake of racialisation, settler-colonialism & apartheid. The first film profiles the Simons family in Bo-Kaap Cape Town. Exploring the significance of klopse carnival & Malay choir traditions, gentrification and race to the family who still live in their generational home in the Bo-Kaap.

The second film profiles the Mathivha family in Shayandima, Venda. The family are Lemba and Jewish by tradition. The film explores the family’s relationship to reclaiming their narrative in a country where the face of Judaism is overwhelmingly white & Ashkenazi.

The third film explores the father-son relationships of two sugarcane farming families in KwaZulu-Natal; the Sharma & Madlala families. Each beneficiaries of land reform, the film explores issues of indenture,
generational farming and land in a post-apartheid, postcolonial South Africa.

*The Family Matters trilogy was commissioned by the Goethe-Institut South Africa 

Family Matters: Bo-Kaap (16:00min)