Footsteps in Africa: A Nomadic Journey

Description

Accolades
Official Selection Ashland Independent Film Festival

Synopsis

Director Kathi von Koerber has created a visual love letter to the nomadic Tuareg people’s way of life. Following a community in perpetual motion, Footsteps in Africa: A Nomadic Journey is more than a social-science documentary. It is a visually arresting, musically revolutionary defense of a non-materialist way of life centered around the algorithms of nature and a spirit of cooperation and self- reliance. Featuring a soundtrack with contributions from Tinawiren and other sub-Saharan musicians, as well as interviews with villagers, artists, scholars, and a cast of unusual road-trip characters, the film is educational, sure — but more than that, it is sheer sensory pleasure to absorb.

Director

Kathi von Koerber

Born in South Africa to German parents, Kathi has been a global nomad right from the start. Raised in Africa and Europe she also lived in China studying mandarin and oriental painting, and later studied film in New York. Currently she lives between Colombia and New York.

For the past 15 years, Kathi has been filming and archiving dance films/footage and audio/visual recordings of tribal dance, rituals, and nature imagery. Kathi has made several short films, Vjd extensively international and produced many multi media shows. “Footsteps in Africa”, is her first feature film debut.

Kathi’s work draws upon the power of the eternal present. She aims to portray the strength and inspiration of every isolated instance. Her work mirrors the alchemy of human behavior, exploring the archetypes of existence, and creating a dialogue with habits, rituals and unconscious behaviors. Her projects are achieved by collaborating with people from all over the world in all mediums of expression. By drawing inspiration from the world’s constant evolution, and by challenging the boundaries of film and dance, she approaches the deep wells of our subconscious behavior, and attempt to expose our species destiny through ritual, performances or films. The trance and intuitive movements of these rituals become a matter of fact.

Kathi is the director of the company Kiahkeya productions founded in 2004, wich serves to inform and disseminate art, creativity and spirituality for the purpose of cross cultural and environmental equality and tolerance. Kathi has worked on projects with the Bushmen tribe of Southern Africa, and the Xawante who live in Brazil, The Tamashek Nomads of the Sahara, the Zulu of Southern Africa, the Lakota of the US, etc. Kathi searched to explore the universality of dance as an art form, and our connection to the earth. Kiahkeya projects are efforts to support the environment and its inhabitants, in this modern day and age.