City Girl

Cape Town
Director / editor: Niklas Zimmer
Camera: James Tayler
Performer: Catherine Scott
Voices: Katherine Bull, Deborah Poynton, Renate Meyer
1'00’’
2009

Sitting naked on her balcony, a woman blurs the line between public and private space, exploring both her comfort and discomfort in the city. She muses about why she likes living there and how it empowers her, as well as increases her sense of vulnerability.

Fragmented

Cape Town
Co-director / Poet / Choreographer: Khanyisile Mbongwa
Co-director / Camera / editor: James Tayler
Performers: Zenande Mankayi, Nicole Olsen
4'53’’
2009

In Cape Town, a city divided along race and class lines, two women can't quite meet and can't quite let go. One gay, one straight, one black, one coloured, the spaces they inhabit connect them, and yet become the thing that separates them from each other. "Fragmented" is a dance poem about the physical and psychological identity of women in the city. They dance in urban spaces marked by masculine architecture that denies the organic curves of their bodies. They venture into marginal areas in which they are subject to intimidation or violation, areas marked by gang graffitti where only men walk safely. Their silhouettes become windows into the cityscape, in a film that dreams of a place where, in a line from the hushed internal monologue of the poem, "I forget your sex and your skin colour".