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

videoKnowledge
A Kichwa activist on ayahuasca’s rise – and what it really means to her people
15 minutes

videoChildhood and adolescence
A neglected Dominican sugar town, as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old local
11 minutes

videoHistory
In the face of denial, this film uncovers the hidden scars of Indonesia’s 1998 riots
21 minutes

videoDemography and migration
In California’s farmlands, immigrant workers share their stories of toil and hope
17 minutes

videoArt
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
8 minutes

videoEngineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes

videoFairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
10 minutes

videoFairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes

videoFairness and equality
Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches
14 minutes