Durban - Twenty-four thousand kilometres. Seven months. Three photographers.
It is this epic tale that short film The Journeymen sought to share as it opened the Durban International Film Festival.
It's a documentary filmed in 2014, the year when South Africa celebrated 20 years of democracy and mourned Nelson Mandela’s death.
The film chronicles the freewheeling journey of three South African photographers (Sean Metelerkamp, Sipho Mpongo and Wikus de Wet) across the country.
Along the way they explore the current state of South Africa with GoPro cameras strapped to their chests, feeling its pulse and asking the question: “Has Mandela’s vision of equality in a rainbow nation been achieved?”
The film answers this question with a kaleidoscopic set of responses that is disturbing, beautiful, thought-provoking and, more than anything, movingly surreal.
The film shows the underlying demons of our troubled national soul but also its deep and profound beauty.
Made with technology that is widely accessible, the film is also a vibrant call to arms for new modes of film-making and fresh approaches to narrative.
Metelerkamp told Goodlife that the team was lent the cameras.
“Two months into the journey, after placing them on static surfaces, I put on the chest strap and went out for the day and recorded my encounters.”
He showed the finished product to De Wet and Mpongo, leading to their all using chest straps and recording themselves.
“At that stage it was used as a way of remembering conversations and the people we met, as we were travelling at quite a pace throughout the country. And so it was a wealth of footage I arrived at after the journey was over, and I realised there was more than enough of it to share in a feature-length assembly.”
He said the content was “super engaging” and needed to be seen by all South Africans.
Metelerkamp said that after watching the film, locals would find themselves in a flurry of mixed emotions and general confusion.
“International viewers will take with them a more dynamic concept of our country than the stereotypical two-dimensional reputation our nation holds abroad on account of our history.”
Coupled with the film, the photographs collected by the trio will form an exhibition - titled Twenty Journey - at the KZNSA Gallery in Glenwood.
The collection, on display from Wednesday to June 24, conveys the photographic journey of the group, who travelled 24 000km around the country for more than seven months speaking to a fascinating array of different people they came across, capturing images that represented those particular individuals and places.
Collectively, these images tell a South African story in a captivating pictorial ensemble, shining a light on the intimate and interwoven nature of the people that make up a nation striving for identity and authentic restoration.
“The frame is no longer still and installed in white gallery walls. The frame is moving through the mundane, the exciting, the discovered, the racial, the gendered, the rich, the poor, the educated, the illiterate, the intersections and the Journeymen,” said Khanyisile Mbongwa, curator of the exhibition.
“It is a project that, in its conception, questions the very existence of the horizon, set up within the context of a collapsing rainbow nation.
“It tasked itself to ask democracy questions about born-frees, land and idiosyncrasies.”
The gallery will also house the festival’s Short Films Hub.
The 37th Durban International Film Festival takes place until June 26 and includes nearly 200 theatrical screenings, as well as the Wavescape Film Festival and various industry initiatives, such as the 9th Talents Durban programme (in co-operation with the Berlin Talent Campus) and the 7th Durban FilmMart co-production market (in partnership with the Durban Film Office).
For more information and details of where the film will be screened, visit: http://www.durbanfilmfest.co.za.
The Mercury