Masizakhe (let us build together)

"Masizakhe: Let Us Build Together"
Directed By: Scott Macklin
Produced By: Angelica Macklin
Run Time: 63 Minutes
audience.withoutabox.com/films/masizakhe

"Masizakhe: Let Us Build Together"


"Masizakhe: Let Us Build Together" is a feature-length documentary that focuses on the role that a new generation of activists are playing in shaping the future of South African society.

This documentary was filmed in South Africa's Port Elizabeth area and the surrounding townships. Most of the people in this film live in small tin shacks without electricity or running water, yet they continue to use the only tool at their disposal: their voice, to try to help the people in their community.

The depth of the poems they write and the songs they sing reach deep into the experience of living through oppression and dealing with an every-day reality that is the legacy of apartheid.

"Masizakhe" is centered around a conversation by five cultural activists as they reflect on the meaning of apartheid and how it has shaped their contemporary lives.

It weaves in and out of this conversation to historical stories, archival footage, poems, music, and face-to-face interviews over several themes that include: forced removal, classification based on race, economic disparity, language issues, activism in the 1970s and 1980s, and the use of popular culture to effect change.

The stories of everyday heroes whose work has led to the end of systematic government oppression are woven with the stories of new, young, activists who have taken the mantel of those activists who came before them.

These heroes include students, teachers, principals, artists, and cultural activists. Some people may question why there is a need for continued activism since the struggle for freedom is over and apartheid ended in 1994. The past eleven years of freedom have proven extremely difficult and the effects of apartheid are still a reality for the majority of the South African people, especially for Black Africans who continue to experience economic apartheid.

This new generation of activists are charged with using popular culture as a catalyst to create positive change for the poorest of the poor in South Africa. Much of this work revolves around building community through music, hip-hop, spoken word, and radio

"Masizakhe: Let us Build Together" is a powerful, engaging, incisive, and hopeful chronicle of the journey of South Africans to overcome centuries of oppression and a testament to the strength of the human spirit to survive and envision possibilities against great odds.
- James A. Banks
Professor and Director of Center for Multicultural Education, UW




We are using our cultural activism as a form of struggle of memory against forgetfulness and as means to excavate our past for the future...we know it is very challenging, but we are trying, we are trying...

- Thabang Queench, Student Activist, Nelson Mandela University

In times of disparity and hardship that's when a persons real fighting spirit arises, "Masizakhe" explores the role that EVERYDAY people like educators and artist have in shaping the front of South Africa! "Masizakhe" is a powerful narration by the actual artist and educators that there is still hope and that through that collective effort change will be brought about.

-- Rushay Boysen, africasgateway

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• art
• documentary
• film
• african
• africa
• south-africa
• hiphop
• hip-hop
• apartheid
• democracy
• poetry
• rap
• rhyme

[davenjoel]

I loved this! I am going to forward this to friends to see and also you have a subscriber in me!

[rushaybooysen]

thanks my friend from seattle was just here a month ago to reshoot some scenes should be done by november then he hoping to get it out in the US

[doldromofthemerry]

Please keep other people's racism from ruining this video for those who want to learn about something outside of America.

[essejydoc]

tell it to Like dube..

[botchalism]

It is thick, thick in the head, I guess if you're into jacking cars, raping women and children, and black on white hate crimes then you'll have a field day.

[botchalism]

If anything its devolving there. The world will see the brutal reality of the situation when they have the World Cup 2010.

[pornocastingcrew]

It`s time to find back in mind what it`s all about. First they need a savety life, and then a evolution

[ashashani]

I give thanks for the Spirit of Self Love and Community this film speaks of and inspires. Ache

[photogenetica]

great dance moves!

[futeristicsolokiller]

this makes me want to visit Africa, the culture seams thick.