We’re making a documentary film: “Solidarity? Revealing the everyday lived reality of Covid-19 in Kliptown, Soweto”

written, shot and produced by Thabang Nkwanyana, Robert Shai, Ginger Mahlamvu, Kristen Kornienko and Bafana Nkosi

To be screened 1 September at the Southern African Cities Studies Conference 2020

The film will be preceded by the distribution of the written story of the early months of our 1955 Kliptown Covid-19 initiative published as an Op-Ed in the Daily Maverick, “Kliptown superheroes take up fight against Covid-19 in service of the people”. The documentary film then critically challenges the government’s absence in Kliptown during the Covid-19 response and its consequence to the everyday. Our seven years of collaborative, activist research into the character and cultural use of space, housing and basic service delivery within this community adds a deeply rooted complexion to the film’s storyline. We further draw on Steve Biko’s argument for the critical connection between community and culture, and his commitment to a form of activism that manifests in real life community development projects responding to community needs.

The character of the film’s narrative reflects the historic lineage of theatre’s role in South African civic discourse and its shift from protest theatre to a theatre of resistance. In this way it taps into today’s Covid-19 moment. A moment which has shone light on the decades old, unaddressed issue of inadequate taps, toilets, electricity and high density in Kliptown, all of which have lead to ongoing general poor health and made compliance with the protective Covid-19 health guidelines impossible for the residents to meet. Through visual creativity and street corner theatre the film draws together the residents’ fears, vulnerability, anger with the compelling action of a few to change their own situation.