Message from Mukalap

synopsis

A unique recording from 1936 in South Africa captures the voice of a man named Mukalap, who invites the Europeans to listen to him and hear his native language, !Ora. The film is a response to Mukalap’s message, which the director understands not only as a valuable historical artifact, but, above all, as an invitation to communicate across time and space, in languages living and dead.

“Constructed as a dialogue, I reply to Mukalap speaking in the Dutch, English and Afrikaans language, as well as fragments of !ora.” … “Playing back Mukalap’s message on a grand E.M.G. gramophone became a way of resounding his voice again, now in the present time. The giant horn of the gramophone, at once voice and void, personified Mukalap to me, he is at once present and absent as I listen and answer.”

biography

Judith Westerveld (1985) grew up in the Netherlands and in South Afrika. She holds a degree in Arts from Gerrit Rietveld Academie and in artistic research from University of Amsterdam. In her short films, audivisual installations and photographic collages she addresses identity in the post-collonial world and skillfully combines archival materials with language experiments.

more about film

director:	Judith Westerveld
producer:	Judith Westerveld