2021 sees a total of eight Innovation Fund beneficiaries: Duma Collective, The Throne, Swypa Delivery, Mzansi Live, Yellowbone Entertainment, The Plug, Whoosh Innovations and Bubblegum Club, all spanning across various industries but breaking ground in their own respective ways. Innovation is one of those slippery modern terms. Difficult to define through language — perhaps because it can take…
If this country could speak, I wonder what it would say of its battle scars and singed surfaces. Of its many children it has had to weep over and those it has lost to empty stomachs that know there’s only so much sustenance to be sucked out of the desolate promises made by those who…
2020 was a wildly unexpected year with great social and institutional change gripping the world; COVID19 pandemic included. Our team has seen the year through with continually producing work to inspire growth, interrogate injustice and remind our audience of the immense creativity and ingenuity of artists around the globe. It is an honour to introduce…
I think it’s safe to say that for many of us, the full scope and breath of 2020, will take some time to process — there is so much to sift through and sit with. Because of this year, I think I can now say I know something of being inside the eye of an…
Owner of — and writer and producer for Zethu’s Tales; Mbalizethu Zulu, founded her production company with a vision of telling entertaining and educational stories that would work not only to instil hope within local communities, but she also had a vision of fleshing out on screen those stories which rang true to her own…
As Bubblegum Club continues to highlight Black young owned production companies and the dynamic individuals and talents behind them — we spent some time talking to production company; Eccentric Circus. The fates of co-founders Neo Sibiya, Xolani Nhlapho and Thabo Mashila—all graduates of other institutions—the University of Witwatersrand, AFDA and Tshwane University of Technology respectively…
Recently, we announced the launch of our graduate trainee programme with a call for candidates interested in joining our team as an art director. The job specifications outlined that we needed candidates with skills that wouldn’t traditionally fall within the scope of art direction. The reason for this being that we are operating within a…
Beyond Black Productions comprised of the trio Nandisa Mkize, Kevin Moeketsi and Khomotjo Christopher Mashile, was born initially from a union of friendship. Thus, it was founded on a union of trust, affinity and kinship, however, more than anything it was conceived of on a shared love for storytelling between the three founders. Nandisa, Kevin…
I am convinced that by visual means alone one can persuade the viewer to feel joy, to cry, to hate, to love, to experience agitation, to suffer. Everything depends on the passionate heart of the person who, through the eye of his camera, is the first viewer of the film. We must discover the visible…
In a year that has given more questions than answers, more mourning than cause for celebration and more chaos than calm — AFROPUNK is bringing together the largest virtual gathering of the worldwide Black creative community in one curated online space, for the first time in its 15 year history. The world has been hurting…
It was through a Missy Elliot music video where Courtnaé Paul first saw the art of breakdancing —and it was love at first sight. However, growing up in a small community in Durban and only seeing men perform the art, the dance felt so far away from her experience. It was not until she was…
When one thinks of the word ‘telenovela’, what probably first comes to mind is the idea of a television drama or soap opera produced in Latin America, perhaps even something of the Mi corazón insiste en Lola Volcán (My heart beats for Lola) variety. “They’re plotting against us, I can feel it”, those are the first…
