Film captures the many faces of Jeppe

It can be explored through guided tours, from behind car windows or through history.

The film ‘Jeppe on a Friday’ explores a different city: the Johannesburg that exists through the men who occupy it. The film was recognised as an African film to watch out for in 2013, by the The Guardian in the United Kingdom. In ‘Jeppe on a Friday’, directors Shannon Walsh and Arya Lalloo brought together a team of women directors to explore a different city: a Johannesburg that beats within the men who occupy it.

The result is an intimate, quiet portrait of five people from Jeppe, a decaying inner-city neighbourhood. As they grapple with the existential and mundane over the course of a single day, the characters reveal not only the city’s specific textures, but also universal human experiences. Familial love is behind restaurant owner Arouna’s success, nostalgia binds Ravi to his dusty framing shop, ambition drives JJ’s ruthless property development company, tradition is at the heart of Robert’s all male Zulu choir and everyday philosophy gives urban recycler Vusi his momentum.

“It was a collaborated process of trust,” said Mrs Shannon Walsh, one of the film’s directors.

She said the aim of the film was to cross into another person’s world and highlight the contradictions of life in the city. Part travelogue, part urban allegory, ‘Jeppe on a Friday’ draws from a rich tradition of city-centred direct cinema and offers a record of life in Johannesburg that demystifies the often maligned male-dominated metropolis.

The film has been viewed at many film festivals, including the New York African Film Festival in May 2013. One of the directors, Mrs Arya Lalloo, was born in South Africa and has directed the outreach documentary ‘Citizen X’, which explored the reactions of social movements to xenophobic violence in the townships.

Mrs Shannon Walsh is filmmaker and an Assistant Professor at the School of Creative Media at the City University in Hong Kong.