Premiere date: February 2020 (Berlinale Film Festival)In his hybrid documentary films, Teboho Edkins explores different cinematic genres. His “controlled” or “directed” reality is often shot and edited as one would a feature film, and his camera work reveals a keen sense for absurd situations. After a series of documentary-gangster films about South Africa, he has now turned his attention to the barren canyons of the Thaba-Tseka district in sparsely populated eastern Lesotho. Reminiscent of the “big country” of classic US Westerns, this landscape becomes the backdrop for a series of conflicts that erupt between the pioneers of a new, capitalist order – ambitious Chinese traders hoping to make a fortune far away from home – and the Basotho, traditional cattle breeders who revere cows as “gods with wet noses”. Former miners hope at least to find a poorly paid job in the employ of the Chinese entrepreneurs in order to avoid a life of crime, but the language barrier reveals other, deeper problems of communication. As is so often the case, it is all a question of assimilation, and what happens to old rules in new circumstances. A film that scrutinizes globalization.
won prizes
DE - Berlin International Film Festival Panorama selection
