The Salvation project continues – with a search of the religious baggage the director’s ancestors carried to South Africa and saddled on subsequent generations.

William Kentridge’s ironic tribute to his hometown, animated on the basis of 25 drawings, is the first film of his “Drawing for Protection” cycle, in which he unfolds the triangle between Johannesburg building tycoon Soho Eckstein, his wife, and the dreamer Felix Teitelbaum. In this film he introduces the central characters of his meta-narrative which, located in a South Africa of the last days of a crumbling Apartheid, becomes an allegorical reflection on socio-political power relations.

This film from Morris’s Salvation project opens with a book about English landscapes a boy in a South African mission station is given in the 19th century and leads to questions of what is foreign in one’s own visual world.

A personal reflection on family, childhood and inevitable farewells – and the shortest film in Morris’s Salvation project.

Chameleon is very proud of his pristine white complexion. When he steps into a puddle of mud he does all he can to get clean again only to end up further and further from white. Finally he manages to clean up only to realize he enjoyed having a bit of colour. So how's he going to get it back?

What do European tourists expect from a vacation in the “Third World”? The title was taken from the slogan of a travel brochure that invites its customers to get a hearty “taste” of the world. That’s what it’s there for, the advertising’s subtext suggests – a huge smorgasbord for the discerning expert, for the Eurocentric with too much leisure time on his hands who takes the liberty of helping himself at will: on the culinary, sexual, economical, or cultural level.

Firefly has had a long, hard day and when the sun sets he heads home for the night. The trouble is that his light keeps shining in his eyes, so he can’t fall asleep. The little firefly desperately tries to extinguish his light. Will he succeed?

An enriching encounter! Whether coincidental or stage-managed isn’t relevant for the further interactions between filmmaker and filmed subjects. Because that “feeling of being there” described by Richard Leacock as the essence of the documentary soon eclipses all doubts and reservations. Impressed by the sure sense of style with which Ilja Stahl establishes the “right” kind of intimacy with his youthful protagonists in an overpopulated neighbourhood of Johannesburg, one feels happy to be allowed to drift with 16-year-old Tebogo and 15-year-old Karabo through their turf as a spectator for one summer. Their turf, that’s underground car parks, high rise roofs, nocturnal streets, where they dawdle away the time, somewhere between boredom and energy to burn.

The conflicts with their single mothers, however, the violence and death in the streets are omnipresent. Karabo feels the pressure more and more while Tebogo sees it as a continuous supply of material for games. He lives by the “anyway” principle when he balances on the parapet of a high rise roof or dances into the path of moving cars with friends and defies everything with a provoking smile. It’s touching how the future looms over these kids’ presence. But they refuse to allow it to rule them. At least not yet.

Ralph Eue

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Nominated for ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, DEFA Sponsoring Prize