Conversing in African with Nadine Angel Cloete

Film is her preferred medium of activism. Issues of identity and social issues are her focus, and tapping into the shared African experience is her dream. Nadine Angel Cloete shares coffee with Ruschka Masoet and invites us to join the African conversation.

 

‘I have no plan-B,’ says Nadine confidently. ‘...If I had to choose something I would probably be a social worker because I like helping people’. It’s 15:45, and while drinking coffee at a busy café in Rondebosch I discover the motivation behind Nadine’s love for producing documentary films; she likes helping people.  

This independent film-maker boasts an honours degree in film from UCT, and her show reel includes winning first prize at a national film festival for her first film ‘Roses’ (produced while at high school), scooping up the first prize at an international human rights film festival for ‘Miseducation’, and earning high acclaim at the Encounters Documentary Film Festival for her honours doccie, ‘Maak it Aan’. Now, with work having been screened across the country and abroad, Nadine is embarking upon an ambitious project that documents the life of struggle icon, Ashley Kriel.

‘...I saw footage of Ashley Kriel and always wondered who the man was behind the raised fist in the air... we tell the story of who he was and what motivated him in life.’ Nadine explained what inspired her to tell the story of slain ANC youth leader, Ashley Kriel. She went on to elaborate that in his case the story of his murder was well-known, so she wanted to focus on the man behind the story, instead of the story itself as the subject of her latest film activism project.

Sharing an anecdote of her time in Egypt during the Jasmine Revolution, Nadine said that she had connected with Arabic films that she had viewed in Egypt despite the language divide because she could relate to the feeling and motivation of the characters that drove the action on screen. Film is capable of transcending traditional barriers of language and culture because of the shared experience of being human in Africa and being able to relate your story to the benefit of yourself and others. 

‘I am a pan-africanist, I want my stories to cater to Africa first and then to the rest of the world.’ Nadine then purposefully adjusted her black knitted beret and related that she hoped that more people would identify as African before everything else, and so enter into a dialogue with the common experience of their African cousins instead of coveting everything from ‘Western’ culture.

For every negative shot of Africa that screens overseas, there are hundreds more positive shots waiting to be captured by someone willing to tell the whole story of the African experience. Nadine uses her films to tell that story.  As a pan-africanist documentary film maker, she uses her career to drive change within society. In her experience, ‘...film gives you a voice, it gives you a platform to express yourself, and film is a form of activism, a fight against injustice.’ 

Nadine Angel Cloete is using her art to fire up an alternate African conversation, one that transcends boundaries and inspires interconnectivity.

* View Nadine's doccie, 'Miseducation', online here.