. - FROM ASHES: A BURNER’S RECKONING WITH A CULTURE IN FLUX
Groundglass Producer and Director Janette de Villiers has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to see her documentary film ‘From Ashes’ to completion. The film is a powerful look into the quiet but deep cultural evolution of AfrikaBurn: a week-long event that takes place annually in the Tankwa Karoo desert in South Africa. What started out as an off-the-grid gathering in the desert for artists and creative expression, has, over the years, become more of a music festival for partygoers. This film uncovers that evolving identity and the complexities that come with it through the exploration of its history and philosophy.
Shot over several years, it captures the spirit of AfrikaBurn through intimate interviews with founders, participants and volunteers, and a sweeping visual narrative crafted from a vast archive of footage, both professional and amateur, spanning from the first Burn in 2007 to the present day.
As one of the regional offshoots of USA’s flagship festival, this unique ephemeral community is built on Burning Man’s 10 principles like radical inclusion, gifting, and decommodification,discouraging commercialism and supporting connection, responsibility and participation. Along with Afrikaburn’s unique 11th principle being “Each one teach one”.
The ‘Burn’ began as a bold experiment in community, art, and freedom of expression, standing for everything that the ‘Default World’ was not, and relying on the community it garnered, and its like-minded makers to uphold its principles.
But, as with most things, these values appear to have been eroded over time by the Org (the administrative organization behind Afrika Burn) the body that governs it, and the participants themselves, and in its place the formation of a top down structure that now seemingly operates for profit, and does not uphold the principles it preaches.
What does this mean for the future of these sort of events, and the contributors who help create them? Does community matter or is it all just theatre? Can events such as these remain pure and keep their integrity or do money, capitalism and power always win in the end?
Alongside Janette, one of the most important and influential voices in the film is Monique Schiess, one of the original founding members of AfrikaBurn. With nearly two decades of lived experience, and being witness over this time to the shifting sands of AfrikaBurn, she reflects on the pivotal turns- culturally, politically, and socially - and offers unflinching insight into how popular culture and social media have shaped and shaken the festival and the event’s foundations across the year
Questions arising from the changing landscape of AfrikaBurn (both figuratively and literally), and from the embers of its many fires, thread themselves throughout the narrative: Has AfrikaBurn remained true to its founding ideals or has it transformed into something else entirely?
Now that’s its popularity has grown, has it lost its creative edge? Is it still the same radical, community-driven movement and revolution it was 10 years ago—or has it become something else?
Even the stalwarts of the festival, many of whom are featured in the film, now question what the Burn has become.
The film doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, thusshowing its authenticity. But it aims to put up a mirror to every viewer, and sets out to do the philosophical work the Burn itself may no longer be doing: calling out theatrics and illusions, reframing the principles, and reigniting feeling.
Janette describes From Ashes as both a celebration of what once was and a critique of what society currently looks like, as well as a call to imagine what could still be.
As far as the Desert is concerned: ‘We Are All Equal’. The question is: can we find our way back here?
If you feel called to Keep The Fire Burning, please help us see the film over the line by visiting our Back-A-Buddy page, and pledging a donation.
https://www.backabuddy.co.za/campaign/from-ashes-crowdfunding-campaign
