The Creators

The Creators tries to bring a semester of college or a year of high school studies of history and culture --

highlighted by live performed music with folk and jazz instruments,

opera singers who are children and young adults;

a mother and son who are both illustrators -

• but the mother does spray paint graffiti and the son does drawn stories with drawn art;

a teacher of hip hop dancing to 11 years old and up and their B-Boy Crews with music, deejays and hip-hop rappers and singers;

a female music star amongst almost entirely male voices and her talented boy child;

one voiceless little girl;

middle aged women speaking;

children in very poor areas; history and a little bit of cultural economy together.

Sounds like a lot?

It is a lot.

It should be at least seven to nine hours of materials, that have been cut down to less than two hours.

So if you're streaming this - be prepared to start and stop and think about it.

This film calls for a one semester college class or a year of high school/secondary school studies, and it does bring hope to a very dark recent past and challenging times.

I dare you to watch it.

Trigger warnings for guns, a brief images of a topless female cartoon character in bondage on one of the subject's shirts. This is a male dominated culture and message movie with some moments for the women. However almost no room for girls.

If you are concerned about young men and male children, this goes far to show the struggles.

The overall feel of this reminds me of America in the 1950s and 1960s, and thanks to the fact that video makes everything seem to be happening now, we can't be quite sure which parts are contemporary.

While capitalism is not called out, colonialism is. Racism in South Africa is called out. Diversity of experience is called out.

The actions of "The Creators" in this film bring hope and meaning, but they do not bring all of the answers.

I wanted to see the names of the musical and graphic artist on the screen or at least a name a picture with each in the credits. This is missing, but perhaps if they do the seven hour version they will be there.

The film opens with the following words:

If you are looking for Hell,

Ask the artist where it is.

If you cannot find an artist

Then you are already in Hell.

• Avigdor Pawsner

The Creators is an ambitious undertaking -- shot, edited and directed by South Africans with the assistance of a bright young woman named Laura Gamse, who hails from Arlington, VA. The recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, she moved to South Africa to make a documentary about one phenomenal artist. "As I spent more time in the country," she recalls, "I realized that the story of just one person could not capture the diversity of -- and tensions within -- South African society. The wealth gap shocked me, not that I hadn't seen polarized wealth in the US, but in South Africa it is more extreme, and the suffering of its people more viscerally apparent. I wanted audiences to be able to feel the different textures of life in South Africa, as expressed through its artists' creations."

The film is oddly uplifting, given the indelible images of slums, violence and poverty. Despite the history of oppression that defined the nation for so long, the artists featured in this film are determined to make art in the form of music or dance or opera or graffiti. In between images of the artists, The Creators shows snippets of history lessons, including archival footage of an officious elected official intoning that apartheid "is a policy of good neighborliness" as images of police actions and brutality fill the screen.

Given the unrest in the Middle East that fills our television screens each night, The Creators is a worthy companion piece. It shows people who refuse to toe the line, whose music will not be silenced, who use their art to combat brutality and injustice. Particularly memorable is Mthetho, who was two years old when his father took off, leaving behind a Pavarotti CD. As the young man grew up in appalling poverty, he learned to sing by imitating the operatic songs and even pretends he can speak Italian. Although his voice is lovely and he is determined to be heard, it is also clear that he needs voice lessons and a mentor. Who knows whether that is realistic?

I've seen many documentaries filmed in Africa, but The Creators stands out for its insistence that attention be paid. Perhaps this is because Gamse gave the artists free rein to decide how and what they would say. Perhaps that is because it's a cautionary tale for nations whose citizens are just now rising up against oppression. Whatever the reason, it's a film you won't soon forget. It's screening at the Los Angeles Film & Music Weekend March 25-27 and hopefully will be coming to a town near you soon.

By Tamar Abrams www.huffingtonpost.com/tamar-abrams

After a week's worth of movie massacres, HIV dramas and other African woes, I was lamenting that Africa will only brace itself for (yet more) bad PR by it's growing film industry. Negative media coverage of the continent (an enormous 95%) seems to work like a positive feedback system, inducing journalists and artists to (again) focus on grim, dark material because that's what African stories are... supposedly.

Not so; The Creators proves that beyond colonialism, genocide, slavery and all the other tragedies that comprise Africa's shadow, there is a dazzling constellation of talent here that refuses to be broken by this heritage. Featured are street artist Faith47, Sweat.X and Blaq Pearl (performance and spoken word poets), Emile (Hip Hopper) Warongx (singer/songwriter) and opera singer Mthetho.

The various luminaries and revolutionaries of Africa's past are acceded by people fighting their realities with art as their weapon of choice. In a scene where a member of Warongx explains all the local kids are playing with toy guns, he demands more music in Africa, begging the world to send shiploads of instruments in lieu of "guns and cheap clothes".

His weapon is a guitar. It's a powerful statement, coming from two men living in a neighbourhood filled with real guns and murder. That this documentary transcended the grim side of township life is testament to the filmmakers. They sifted out so much joy from the violence of South Africa.

History isn't ignored in The Creators; all the issues are still there. We see archive footage of protesters being gunned down with teargas by the apartheid government. We hear tales of violence, memoirs of deceased young radicals that pushed the creative boundaries, murder, political imprisonments, and the daily struggle for survival in South Africa.

But The Creators captured the positivity coming out from all these young people beautifully. It proved true art is not restrained by politics or religion - or even life. Expression in this sphere is unrestrained. The film proves that anyone's vision must developed into it's full artistic potential. If there is a message to be told by modern South Africa, it's that art will save your sanity.

A guru-like B-Boy talks about his mission to get South African kids break dancing "not to make heaps of money like Jay Z… but to find yourself. To battle yourself until you're no longer trapped in this physical form." A beautiful and brutally honest Blaq Pearl says that as a teenager she didn't go out drinking but "stayed home to write." Another singer refuses to cry- poor and declares "We never thought we were poor until they told us."

Aid-culture and colonialism are themes lying beneath the music and pictures. It addresses African and European mentalities, the introduction of Western religion ("You talk of Jerusalem, why can't you talk of Cape Town?"); degradation ("inferiority was instilled in our minds long ago") and ambition- ("Africans are hundreds of miles away from where they've supposed to be.")

Film makers should take some hints from this film. It told the story of South Africa on a fresh reel. I don't know if Warongx's song moved him, or rather the plethora of scenes depicting young Africans (from all backgrounds) liberating themselves through their art forms; but the man that interrupted the last scenes of The Creators yesterday by bopping in the rows clearly needed to move.

Ergo, I think the films director/editors -Laura Gamse and Jacques de Villiers- should regard their work as a success. It's not everyday filmmakers that make someone dance in the aisles before the credits roll.

This film should awaken the artistic generation living here, and motivate African youth to aim for true expression (regardless of how inconvenient that expression is to the rest of us...)

Destruction is passe. Africa is creating.

By Jaki Sainsbury from Mambo Magazine

The Creators is an eye-opening documentary that delves deep into the lives of six South African artists as they navigate their challenging environments to create meaningful art. The film highlights a rich blend of music, dance, graffiti, and opera, giving a vibrant, authentic look at South African culture. The documentary is visually stunning, with well-shot cinematography and detailed production design that doesn't feel like your typical low-budget indie film. While it's inspiring, it does pack a lot into less than two hours, and some sound issues slightly detract from the overall experience.

Not knowing much about South Africa, except Paul Theroux's recent book on his march through western Africa and his final destination Johannesburg, and the real problems that remain post apartheid, as well as Looking for Sugarman, I was hungry for more information and feel for the country and this film fills a real gap. There is an intense artistic voice in South Africa and its a huge mix of discordant, wild expression, and The Creators gives you an important behind the scenes and REAL look. My favourite was the rap/electro/alternative black and white duo Sweat.X and they could merit a movie on themselves alone, really great voices and powerful elements for change. Two thumbs up.