Ironside And His Sister - A Very Old Xhosa Fairy Tale - A Short Movie

This Chocolat Negro short movie narrates a very old Xhosa Fairy Tale in a modern way and tries to demonstrate the beauty of the original old Xhosa culture of the Eastern Cape. 

It has been conceptualized as a mixed-media project, not only telling the story but underlining it with visuals. 

Historical images and installations, as well as modern digital photography have been used. Seven of the images in the story come from the work of photographer Alice Mertens. 

The "Xhosa-life-behind-glass-displays" in the East London Museum have been photographed and digitally altered to create real life impressions for the movie.

The story of "Ironside And His Sister" has been first written down in 1886 by Georg McCall Theal and was published as part of his book "Kaffir Folk-Lore - A Selection from the Traditional Tales Current Among the People Living on the Eastern Border of the Cape Colony - with copious explanatory notes, London: S. Sonnenschein, Le Bas & Lowrey".
In 1886 the author explained in his book that "in South Africa the word kaffir is often used in a general way to describe any black native who is not the descendant of an imported slave, but on the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony it usually restricted to a member of the Amaxhosa tribe. It is from individuals of this tribe that the following stories have been collected".

George McCall Theal (11 April 1837 - 17 April 1919), was the most prolific and influential South African historian, archivist and genealogist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. 

Many antique books of the nineteenth century dealing with African folklore (Folk Tales) are impossible to get and extremely expensive. There are few. Although McCall Theal lived in the colonial era his collection of Xhosa Fairy Tales is one of the few attempts to record and write down the traditional folk stories and legends of the people of the Eastern Cape for later generations in that time.

"Ironside And His Sister" is the first movie of a series of stories we have filmed and brought to life in an attempt to bring these great stories to a greater public who might not even be aware of them.

In the movie we are taking the listener and viewer on an uninterrupted journey forth and back between the past and the today of the Eastern Cape. 

For the readers who have read with great excitement the articles about the "Traditional Way Of Dressing In the Xhosa Culture" this might be an interesting movie. The historical images show how the Xhosa people dressed before the influence of colonialism and Western Cultures.