e-lectricity

What do you automatically think of when someone says a film set in a South African township? Grinding poverty and misery all round, something worthy but perhaps a little painful to watch? Then perhaps e-lectricity might change your perspective a little. Yes, it is set in a township but is an unambiguous comedy. The township has no electricity so when the sun goes down the place is left in the dark.

However, there is some hope. Walter (played with considerable charm by Thokozani Ngoma) is an inventor – a little eccentric as you might expect but a shy and disingenuous young man, often the subject of ridicule when his attempts at generating electricity go badly wrong.

At the other end of the township is the indomitable Thimble (played by the talented Rethabile Mokhele), serial knitter and supplier of balaclavas to the settlement’s rather meek criminal underclass.

Somehow their fates are, well, intertwined.

This warm and funny short film was produced and written by Jade Galbraith and directed and written by Miklas Manneke.

The Blind Photographer

The Blind Photographer is an intriguing short movie. It focuses on a photographer who goes to unusual lengths to capture unprompted pictures of homeless people. To use his own words he wants his pictures to be “not gloomy staged or posed but spontaneous and full of joy”.

Yet perhaps this photographer’s eye is not quite what it should be as we follow him to a viewing of his work at a swanky art gallery. My immediate thoughts were well, that's biting the hand that feeds you. Watch the short through to the very end to see what I mean – it is a thought provoking yet not entirely downbeat ending. Cynicism and decadence are, perhaps, trumped by youthful hope – morally at least.

The Blind Photographer was made by Christian Denslow, who sums himself up thus - filming things makes me happy – which is cool. It start the very photogenic (can one say filmogenic?) Thiru Naidoo (pictured) as the eponymous artist whose last scene (and I am sure he didn’t mind) was completely stolen by Ino (another one name only child actor in the vein of Sabu, perhaps?) who gives this short film its heart.

Namaqualand – South Africa’s Daisy Sensation

Namaqualand is dry for most of the year, an arid almost desert landscape which extends along South Africa’s western coast for 600 miles. Yet when the rains are good, something like a miracle happens.  Water, the driving force of all nature, soaks in to the parched earth.  An uncountable host of flowers materialize as if from nowhere, creating an extraordinary eruption of color, transforming the countryside and dazzling the eye.

Image Credit Flickr User mmavocado

The Goat Tower - A Caprine Condominium

What do you do when you own a group of Swiss Mountain Goats but there isn’t anywhere for them to climb? The answer that South African farmer Charles Back came up with was to create a domicile for his goats that would help keep them fit as well as giving them an altogether butter kind class of goat shed.

Image Credit Flickr User vilseskogen

The Day the Sea Turned to Gunk

It was as if the ocean has been turned in to a giant cup of cappuccino, a particularly frothy one at that. This display of nature’s occasional freakiness had people scratching their heads in Cape Town, South Africa.  Sea Point Beach on the outskirts of the city was transformed in to a foamy mess when the sea suddenly frothed itself into a frenzy.

Yet what caused this lather?  It seems that a variety of impurities in the seawater combined at just the right amounts and, shaken and stirred up by the powerful motion of the waves, formed bubbles. The bubbles bonded together and before long it was as if some sort of chain reaction had taken place, back in 2012. It was everywhere.

Drawn

The difficult first date.  Often it’s hard to know where to begin, to start to get to know that mysterious other sat opposite to you.

Perhaps a common interest will draw the two together? Yet when it comes to a man and a woman often the routes that are taken can be quite different. A leap of the imagination shows us that whereas it may not always be a case of Mars and Venus the genders can have a very different take on the same planet!

This charming animated short is the work of a number of students at The Animation School in South Africa – Armand Filmalter, Theresa Hargitai, Alexandre Salomon, Simon Van Der Merwe, Stephen Van Wyk and Michelle White with music by Craig Ormond. 

Hooked

A hungry little fish searches for food but very quickly becomes distracted by the shiny pink bait on the end of a very sharp looking round thing. This doesn’t have the poor little guy being reeled in as its denouement, so don’t worry. It is, however, a very fine example of some of the animation coming out of Africa these days.

Character Matters Animation Studio, the maker of Hooked is an award winning 3D Animation Studio based in Cape Town, South Africa. Character Matters is passionate about the development and creation of memorable animated feature films, television series and characters that appeal to the whole family. Combining cutting edge technology with creative talent, the staff over at Character Matters delivers world class 3D animation. They are hardly new kids on the animation block, either, having been around for 15 years. However, this may be the year that the rest of the world sits up and takes notice!

The Bird of Paradise Without Wings

This particular bird has no wings and will never fly. However, people around the world will stop and gawk at its flightless beauty. Take a look at the bird of paradise without wings.

Wing It

Sherman is trying to be the first man to fly – but it is proving a difficult (if not impossible) task and he has found himself a source of ridicule in the media.

Yet across the gulf of space, intellects not so vast and cool yet very sympathetic, have been regarding this inventor with compassionate eyes, and quickly but with little foresight draw their plans to help him together. And late in the nineteenth century comes the great intervention.

Apologies to HG Wells for paraphrasing the opening paragraph of War of the Worlds so poorly but this must surely be the antithesis of his work. These aliens only want to help, not to conquer – but it may not be the kind of help that poor Sherman (or our planet) needs! This is obviously a parallel universe without such a thing as the prime directive - these aliens seem quite happy to meddle (in a pretty amateur way it must be said) with the affairs of an undeveloped culture! They do seem, however, to have come to the conclusion that it is best to help out while undercover...

This Short Film Animation Project has been created by students of The Animation School in South Africa to gain vital work experience. During their time working on Wing It, they studied scripting and on-set production including post production where such skills as editing, sound recording, special effects creation and compositing are learned. The (long!) credits are at the end of this animated short movie but Wing It stands as a testament to the talent both of the students and their teachers.

How to Eat a Giraffe

The Johannesburg Department of Wildlife are concerned that people do not know quite how to eat a giraffe properly so they have produced this rather interesting short animation to give people all the information they need in order to purchase, euthanize and eat a giraffe correctly.

That is very thoughtful of them because it is something that comes up quite often in our household at least – and now we know where we were going wrong we look forward to tasting all those giraffe based delicacies that we have been missing because of silly little mistakes. This short piece shows you how to live off the land with a culinary flair... just because you have no stable government or social structure doesn't mean you can't enjoy the finer things in life.

This funny (if you have the right sense of humor) animation is brought to you by Phil Henderson, who gets his jollies by making people laugh. Well, this may not be to everyone’s taste, Phil, but you made us laugh here at the Old Kuriositas Shop.

The Crate Fan Cometh

Image Credit Flickr User CCSA

What’s red, 15 meters tall and made from 2,600 Coca-Cola crates?  Any guesses?  Meet Crate Fan, the beverage giant’s monument to the FIFA World Cup, just about to start in South Africa.  As well as a (very good) advert for the product, the company have stated that it is a very visible statement of their commitment to recycling in the African nation.

Image Credit Flickr User CCSA

The giant crate fan will stand for the duration of the tournament in Johannesburg’s Mary Fitgerald Square, greeting motorists as they pass on the M1 highway the giant figure overlooks.  A second is currently being constructed on the waterfront in Cape Town.

Image Credit Flickr User CCSA

Crate Fan is the work of artist Porky Hefer (that is some name, sounds like another way of saying fat cow).  First he erected a steel scaffold as the skeleton on to which the crates were then added.  Coca-Cola certainly seems to be going strong on the recycling message.  They recently ran a Ticket Fund programme in which children won tickets to matches in the World Cup based on how many used bottles they could collect for recycling.

Image Credit Flickr User CCSA

With that in mind, of course, it does beg the question whether the artist used old or new crates for the twenty five ton monument. Mmm.

Image Credit Flickr User CCSA

Here at Kuriositas, we reckon that the real inspiration for the art is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.  You have to admit, redness aside, there is a certain similarity. Or is that why we have just been given a giant red finger?

Image Credit Flickr User CCSA

Meanwhile, over at our sibling site, World Cup Football Today, you can find out more about what is going on in South Africa as the tournament progresses.

As well as reports on the match we bring you the best promotional videos doing the rounds on the internet at the moment.  Go take a look!