New Afrikaans-language cinemas / Nuwe Afrikaanstalige rolprentrigtings

Abstract

Introduction This issue of Tydskrif vir Letterkunde offers four investigations of contemporary Afrikaans-language cinemas. The emphasis in this issue is on ‘the new’: new ways to interrogate Afrikaans-language films, or Afrikaans-language films that in a new way deal with themes or content that had not been explicitly addressed in Afrikaans-language cinema. Such is the variation of the themes and aesthetics of contemporary Afrikaans-language filmmaking that it is best to refer to Afrikaans-language cinemas in the plural. This plurality confirms the degrees of range and differences––in themes, aesthetics, intended audiences––that constitute contemporary Afrikaans-language filmmaking. Keyan Tomaselli is particularly astute about the use of the plural ‘cinemas’ instead of the singular ‘cinema’, where cinemas “implies the study of form, political economy and the regional, national and local historical contexts a within which industries and their associated productions practices and aesthetic regimes are located” (“Africa, Film Theory and Globalization: Reflections on the First Ten Years of the ‘Journal of African Cinemas’” 18). Such an understanding of cinemas foregrounds the multiplicity of Africa and Africans “exuding thousands of identities, languages, ethnicities and societies exhibiting myriad values” (“Africa, Film Theory and Globalization” 18). The variation and difference that Tomaselli refers to above also apply to the context of the smaller, yet dynamic, Afrikaans-language film industry, which has increasingly shed a historically dominant conservatism (of politics, gender and sex) in favour of more progressive approaches to and representations of being and living in South Africa. Some contemporary Afrikaans-language films are increasingly focused on the socio-political forces that shape life in South Africa, and that inform the identities of various Afrikaans-speaking individuals. Consider this limited sample of Afrikaans-language films from 2016 to 2020: the crime drama Noem my Skollie (2016); the historical drama Krotoa (2017), with its critical lens on South Africans history and race; the social realism of Tess (2017); the queer dynamics of Kanarie (2018), Die stropers (2019) and Moffie (2019); the celebration of individual liberation and actualisation in Wonderlus (2018); the politically incisive science-fiction Wesens (2020) with its emphasis on emergent technology in place and mythmaking. These films often provide a reckoning with the past; give voice to marginalized communities (see also the socio-politically grounded thriller Nommer 37); promise aesthetic innovation; and display a considerable concern with gender, specifically masculinity. Taking the above titles into account, one might propose an Afrikaans-language queer cinema, for instance, as well as an Afrikaans cinema of critical historical retrospection.