random goodness

screenshot from Jim Chuchu’s site
PHOTOGRAPHY: jim chuchu {photography}. Photographer, animator, musician Jim Chuchu’s photography site. [via Ntwiga]

MUSIC: Iwinyo Piny: Just A Band. Music and visuals by aforementioned Jim Chuchu who is also a member of JAB. Band member Dan posts on kenyananimation blog their thinking process in creating the video. He also discusses how JAB had a rough time pitching this video to Kenyan TV stations: one Program Manager responded that they couldn’t air it as it would alienate their viewers since it was 5 years ahead of its time. You know you are doing something right when you get a response like that. [kenyanimation blog link via paula callas].

screenshot of Ian van Coller’s photo essay, “Interior Relations”
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ian van Coller: Interior Relations (portraits of black South African domestic workers taken in the homes of their white employers).

BOOKS: Chinua Achebe and the great African novel: it’s been 50 years since “Things Fall Apart” was published.

FILM: Tropa de Elite (The Elite Squad). High concept: “City of God from the police perspective, but with more brutality and violence and less nuance”. Director Jose Padilha meant to shoot this story as a follow up to his acclaimed documentary “Bus 174″, but chose to fictionalize it based on interviews and a book by 2 ex-BOPE cops. Raises some serious moral questions about how to combat out of control urban crime in townships/favelas/slums that have been criminally ignored by governments. Showed (not so) recently at Tribeca film festival, not sure when it will get wide release.