South African artist, Kentridge, launches new film exploring optimism of making things
“William Kentridge explores the optimism of making things—how, even in dire circumstances, there will be people who play, create, and sing. He enlists a local brass band to lead a jolly procession out of the studio and into Johannesburg. But will Kentridge’s two split parts come to an agreement?”
Variety – 2024 – excerpt from Mubi Takes Global Streaming Rights to South African Artist William Kentridge Series ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot’, March 18, 2024
by Nick Vivarelli
Image: courtesy Claudia Tomassini
Indie streamer Mubi has acquired worldwide streaming rights to South African artist William Kentridge’s series “Self-Portrait As a Coffee Pot” which explores how art is made in the digital age.
The nine-episode series by Kentridge – who is celebrated around the world for his influential works comprising animation, installations, theater, opera and films – first previewed as a rough cut at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival, [and is showing from 18 October 2024 on Mubi].
Kentridge lays bare his creative process in the nine 30-minute videos produced in the artist’s Johannesburg studio during the pandemic and its aftermath, between 2020 and 2023. In “Self-Portrait As a Coffee Pot,” Kentridge also invites audiences to reflect on the same philosophical questions that he poses to himself across the episodes, including how do our memories work, what makes us ourselves, and why does history always go wrong.
“Playfully deconstructing and assembling the pressing concerns of our time as works of art,” Kentridge uses “hand-drawn animations, dialogues with collaborators and doppelgängers, holding a light to unseen ideological forces that govern the world we live in,” according to a provided synopsis.
“Throughout the process of making this series, as William has evinced the courage to engage the art form of cinema, I have found myself again overcome with emotions and wonder as illustrations dance across notebooks, a visiting chorus of singers finds their voice, received wisdom is challenged, artifice is unveiled, and we as viewers are invited to unleash our own imaginations and take part in creation.”
Joslyn Barnes, series producer
