PhilosophySciencePsychologySocietyCulture
EssaysVideos

Popular

About
DONATENEWSLETTER
/
/
Aeon
DONATE/NEWSLETTER/
/

    A South African township is vibrantly resilient despite the scars of apartheid

    Welcome to Lavender Hill, a makeshift township in Cape Town’s Cape Flats region populated by non-whites who were forcibly relocated under apartheid. With help from a local tour guide, the British filmmaker Rachel Close wanders among the diverse, intertwined group of hairdressers, small-time gangsters, musicians, preachers, and idealistic young people who call the township home. In her honest and humanising documentary, Close depicts the community and its residents as representative of a resilient, hopeful South Africa that’s still perpetually confronted by the scars of its past.

    Director: Rachel Close

    22 January 2015
    A person in a hard hat and coveralls surrounded by thick white smoke, obscuring most of the view.

    videoFairness and equality

    There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa

    10 minutes

    A man smiling and clasping his hands in front of a red wooden house with sculptures; green trees are in the background.

    videoCities

    Inside the unique London community built by residents to defy housing discrimination

    21 minutes

    Black-and-white photograph of an elderly white man sitting next to a Black child, who is holding fingers to their face. Both look directly at the camera.

    videoArt

    David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white

    15 minutes

    A bald, moustached man with a serious expression standing in an elevator, mirrored walls reflecting his back.

    videoMood and emotion

    The candid, surprising stories of a tower block’s residents emerge in the lift

    25 minutes

    A man playing golf in an overgrown, dry canal with patches of grass and puddles beneath trees under a clear sky.

    videoThe environment

    This is what climate change looks like: the social fissures of Cape Town’s water crisis

    13 minutes

    Blurry photo of a townscape with unfocused colourful lights strung across buildings in the evening.

    videoAgeing and death

    Memories of friends and neighbours light the streets of a seaside village in England

    11 minutes

    A woman with wet hair sitting in a hairdresser’s basin, getting her hair washed, holding the basin, looking up and smiling slightly.

    videoSocial psychology

    Sink-side diplomacy: a Jewish Israeli filmmaker gets a job at an Arab hair salon

    7 minutes

    Blurred image showing two faces in front of a building with blue neon signs and windows. The scene has a distorted, colourful light effect.

    videoRace and ethnicity

    Seeking authenticity in a Chinatown built for tourists and Hollywood movies

    23 minutes

    A young man in a sleeveless shirt standing in a rural area at sunset, surrounded by trees and grass.

    videoProgress and modernity

    Two young Bushmen grapple with the possibility of transitioning to modern lives

    29 minutes