While everyone was proudly celebrating the strong womxn in their lives on Women’s Day, I sat alone, hiding behind this desk, wrestling with these words, wondering—why exactly? What on earth do we have to celebrate? Many South African womxn, live, work, or are educated in underdeveloped rural or urban areas, relying on male support for…
The director’s grounding in the principles of literature is immediately apparent. Milisuthando, the film, is structured over five chapters. Throughout, there’s an interweaving of devices, recurrent motifs, a playful use of cue and reference, supple vocabulary, and — most interesting in this genre of the personal essay — journalism’s mantras of ‘show, don’t tell’ and…
The essayistic film Milisuthando is meditative and slow — it presents long, romantic shots where the camera is simply moving from scene to scene, punctuated with poetic narrations, often layered over resonant polyphonic melodies. The shots are evocative, meandering and mesmerising — a small flame travelling slowly through space from stick to candle, large expanses…
Serial Killer: a person who murders three or more people, with the murders occurring over more than a month. There is often no apparent motive, and the murders typically follow a characteristic, predictable behaviour pattern. The psychology behind why serial killers kill has been studied extensively over the years. From understanding how their brains work…
Kim (they/them) had been fixing to take me to this place for a while. Walking ahead in a resplendent green fit and freshly done hair; I bustled behind, hoping to hide my pride. Amidst the swanky streets of Rosebank, they led me up to a hidden gem—54 on Bath’s Level Four Restaurant. Along the path,…
The internet and social media are good at getting us all to connect. No matter your geographical location, as long as you have decent wifi and a smartphone, you can find out what Kim Kardashian is up to or see the latest clips from Beyonce’s Renaissance World Tour. Through comment sections we can discourse and…
As a nihilistic sex worker who is typically shunned by every social group I come into contact with, baddie culture was once a safe haven. Back then, being a baddie meant that as a marginalised womxn, your power lay in your ability to take the sour lemons life laid at your feet and make sweet…
Roses are no longer red and violets don’t gleam the same shade of blue in this dating era. Dating as a Gen Z has become hazardous. Everything has become hyper-focused on money, sex and ego. Ghosting has become the norm, while message responses are strategic instead of romantic and honest. Social media has allowed us…
This title may come across as clickbait, but it is not entirely unfounded. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the literacy rate in Africa was estimated to be around 64% in 2018, which is below the global average of 86%. Data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators shows a lower availability of books…
The new Mzanzi Magic show Shaka ILembe opens slowly, transporting us into a time where it was tribe against tribe, and through narration, an age-old story is revived and given a fresh outlook and making it feel like stepping into a living, breathing historical era. The show has been advertised as South Africa’s biggest and…
Two years ago, Africans were united as they ran and not walked to stream the first season of Netflix’s Young, Famous & African. It felt that finally, we had a multicultural show that we could all enjoy, as we watched some of the most famous stars from Africa share a screen in a way that…
On the heels of Tsotsi’s Oscar win for Best International Feature Film in 2006, came another crime film from South Africa. Jerusalema: Gangster’s Paradise (2008), directed by Ralph Ziman was supposed to live up to the critical acclaim that Tsotsi did. However, where Tsotsi is about redemption and the breakaway from criminality in pursuit of…
