“Interesting companion piece to doc hit Searching for Sugar Man…this aptly raw, energetic survey of a very DIY scene should appeal to programmers looking for an arresting intersection of music, politics and underground culture.”
– VARIETY
“…bursting with the heyday of the multiracial punk scene…with a loving emphasis on the surprising – and often overlooked – role that punk music played in Africa.”
“An eye-opening documentary…a labour of love full of rare archive footage and wry testimonies.”
– THE WIRE (UK)
PUNK IN AFRICA is the story of the multi-racial punk movement within the recent political and social upheavals experienced in three Southern African countries: South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
In these societies, the punk subculture represented a genuinely radical political impulse, playing out against a backdrop of intense political struggle, economic hardship and even civil war.
PUNK IN AFRICA traces this until-now untold story from its roots in the underground rock music of early 1970s Johannesburg, the first multi-racial punk bands formed in the wake of the Soweto Uprising and the militant anti-apartheid hardcore and post-punk bands of the 1980s to the rise of celebratory African-inspired ska bands which sprang up from Cape Town to Maputo in the democratic era of the 1990s. Today, an emerging generation of bands continue to draw on this legacy to confront the political challenges of contemporary Zimbabwe and the uncertain identity issues of the Afrikaans minority in South Africa.
Featuring music, interviews and rare and unseen archive footage of Suck, Wild Youth, Safari Suits, Power Age, National Wake, KOOS, Kalahari Surfers, The Genuines, Hog Hoggidy Hog, Fuzigish, Sibling Rivalry, 340ml, Panzer, The Rudimentals, Evicted, Sticky Antlers, Freak, LYT, Jagwa Music, Fruits and Veggies, Swivel Foot and more…
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PunkInAfrica