Milisuthando
Milisuthando Bongela
Milisuthando Bongela was born in 1985 in Transkei, the first »homeland« set up for Black South Africans, which was declared independent from South Africa in 1976. She grew up in the midst of apartheid, but remained unaware of its existence. Although promoted as an independent state, Transkei was in reality a manifestation of systematic racist segregation. The republic was dissolved in 1994 after the fall of the apartheid regime. Blending archive material from private collections and state sources – including records from the former Ministry of Information – with conversations with relatives and friends, Milisuthando interweaves Bongela’s personal story with the broader history of her country, creating a deeply personal cinematic essay.
»The thing I set out to do was find myself in history as a Black person. How does history, through this medium of the camera, represent me? Is it a true representation of who I am as an African? We came to realise that it’s not. And if I can’t rely on history; if I want to use this archive I’m seeing, but it does not represent me fairly as a Black person or tell me who I am, we have to find a way to subvert it. And that led to a more associative editing style, almost telling new stories with the archive that we found. I want to call it a genre of Bantu cinema, which is fundamentally connected to African modalities of storytelling. It’s much more circular, concentric. The occult, the esoteric is all mixed in. The line between reality and fiction is thin.« (Milisuthando Bongela)
In cooperation with the Afrika Film Festival Köln
Milisuthando Bongela about Milisuthando:
Interview: Africa Film Festival Köln
Milisuthando Bongela
Milisuthando Bongela (b. 1985, South Africa) is an award-winning writer, editor and artist. Her career began in the fashion industry but in the last 15 years it has seen her traverse the worlds of music, art, media and film – continually turning towards indigenous knowledge. For three years she was Arts Editor for The Mail & Guardian and was host and co-producer of the podcast Umoya: On African Spirituality with Athambile Masola. After 8 years, she has recently completed her first film, a personal essay documentary titled Milisuthando which had its world premier at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. She is an inaugural fellow of the 2020 Adobe Women at Sundance Fellowship.
