PUNK IN AFRICA
South Africa, Czech Republic 2011
Category
Human Rights, MusicInfo
Documentary, South Africa, Czech Republic 2011
Runtime: 80 min./52 min.
Directors: Keith Jones, Deon Maas
Production: Meerkat Media, Bohemian Lions & Peligroso Productions
Three chords, three countries, one revolution…PUNK IN AFRICA is the story of the multi-racial punk movement within the recent political and social upheavals experienced in three Southern African countries: South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In these societies, the punk subculture represented a genuinely radical political impulse, playing out against a backdrop of intense political struggle, economic hardship and even civil war.
PUNK IN AFRICA traces this until-now untold story from its roots in the underground rock music of early 1970s Johannesburg, the first multi-racial punk bands formed in the wake of the Soweto Uprising and the militant anti-apartheid hardcore and post-punk bands of the 1980s to the rise of celebratory African-inspired ska bands which sprang up from Cape Town to Maputo in the democratic era of the 1990s. Today, an emerging generation of bands continue to draw on this legacy to confront the political challenges of contemporary Zimbabwe and the uncertain identity issues of the Afrikaans minority in South Africa.
FESTIVALS:
Durban Int. Film Festival 2011/ZA, Oppikoppi Festival 2011/ZA, Viza MusicFilm Festival 2011/ZA, Festival Do Rio 2011/Brasil, IFF Rotterdam 2012/NL, One World Prag 2012/CZ, Indie Lisboa 2012/Portugal, IFF Innsbruck 2012/Austria, Open City London 2012/UK