Local arthouse film to screen in Brazil
Local filmmaker Joel Haikali’s arthouse short film titled ‘Invisibles’, is proving popular at international film festivals, having just recently selected to screen at the Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival in Brazil, which opened on the August 20 and will close on August 30 2020.
The 16-minute film follows two individuals feeling irrelevant to the world who run into each other at a low point in their lives. Instead of drowning together, they go on a journey to self-love and freedom. By travelling the majestic Namibian outback, the landscape of the psyche of a post-Apartheid nation and theirs, they find their place.
The film won the Best Cinematography award at the Namibia Theatre & Film Awards 2019 and selected to screen at various international festivals including Quibdo Africa Film Festival in Colombia; the Africlap Film Festival in Toulouse, France; the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, USA; Mashariki African Film Festival in Rwanda; Africa Film Festival Cologne in Germany and Le Festival cinémas d’Afrique –Lausanne, Switzerland.
Haikali said with ‘Invisbles’, he challenged his creative boundaries and tested his confidence in intuition. The writer and director says the process helped him discharge his creative inhibitions, and to do what he often might have suppressed creatively- being free with filmmaking.
“I also wanted to use what is at my disposal such as our unique locations, diverse skillsets and myself in a very intimate way by directing the creative process and also being one of the leading actors. It is personal and political at the same time while allowing space for interpretation. In the end it’s also about re-presentation of image and about taking that in our own hands. Often ‘the world’ and that includes ourselves on the continent doesn’t expect certain images from Africa and I have been hungry to add to the alternative visions of what we see, experience and interpret,” he said.
The Joe Vision Production film stars Salmi Nambinga, Kaudife Haikali, Tulimelila Shityuwete, Vilho Nuumbala, and Cecil Moller.
