Slindile Mthembu, Gabi Motuba & Thina Zibi
Our nine-minute short film, Faceless, tracks the quest for identifying self, valuing community and self-realisation. The imaginative montage is set to jazz vocalist Gabi Motuba’s soul-stirring songs from the album Tefiti — Goddess of Creation. Three songs, namely, Endless Possibilities, The Rapture and Remember Me appear in the project, together with Motuba as a character in the film.
This poetic film fuses spoken word and dance to illustrate the concept of “togetherness” through performative movement and sound, with many of the scenes featuring a woman in an empty room.
The empty room signifies the start of this journey toward finding self, valuing community (one voice), and the creation of a new human existence. The concept of the single scene illustrates the yearning for unity, and also allows for the exploration of other crucial themes, such as faith (or the attunement to God’s whisper), represented here through the internal-external hum of the consistent sonic background.
The idea is that there is no end and no beginning when it comes to identification. What is, is already existing inside of you. The story is as moody, sensual and clean as it is cold and performative. Abstract and driven by movement, it uses theatre-inspired performance and the voiceover as the primary tools to give us a glimpse into inner turmoil and the need for belonging.
Some of the interiors in Moonshine
Valley Studios are stark and minimal. Considering the narrative and its abstract nature, this worked perfectly for us. It was a controlled environment, with a lot of elements to play with, not to mention safe for a crew consisting of many women.
We took our cues for some of the costuming from Motuba’s album cover — that signature green dress evoked epoch, but was also not quite contained by it. As collaborators
in the production of this film, we also worked on a longer version, soundtracked by five songs from Motuba’s album. Because of cost constraints we had to cut the project, but we hope to obtain more resources to flesh out the structure and concept in the near future.
Motuba, a contemporary South African jazz musician, who is inspired by the black female experience and community, mirrored our own
journey into being. It was her song Endless Possibilities that inspired us to write a visual narrative that would be co-directed by Thina Zibi, a photographer, director and producer.
Once, at Motuba’s house, we sat around the dinner table listening to songs from the Tefiti album before it was released. When the album came out, we kept going back to Endless Possibilities — the repetitive humming, the way the strings came in
to complement the voice, and the layeredness of the bass. It’s an evocative feeling like no other; as if you are part of her thought process.
The project also includes Daniella Dagnin (art), Lindiwe Mayisela (wardrobe), Sara Chitambo (producer) and Rick Joaquim (director of photography).
Faceless