Two films by Johannesburg visual artist and filmmaker Michael MacGarry,
Excuse me, while I disappear and Flies, have been included
in the Urban Africa programme at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which
runs from 21 January to 1 February 2015.
Flies is a nine minute film set in Pretoria, South Africa in 1995 which
tells the story of an elderly Afrikaans former-civil servant who discovers he is the sole
inhabitant of a large, derelict downtown apartment complex he once designed. When
he accidentally witnesses a political assassination, he is forced into a violent
confrontation with modernity. Flies will also feature at the Jozi Film
Festival, which takes place from 20 to 22 February.
Shot in Kilamba Kiaxi, a new city built outside Luanda, Angola Excuse me, while
I disappear is a 19 minute film about a young municipal worker who lives by
night in the old city centre of Luanda and works by day as a groundskeeper at Kilamba
Kiaxi. The new city is to be home to more than 210 000 people, and is the single
largest investment project by China in Africa.
