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