Jerome Pikwane_The Tokoloshe (2018)_Interviews2024
With a decolonised text-centric approach, these two interviews with South African director Jerome Pikwane about his horror film The Tokoloshe (2018) discuss cultural iconography in this and other African horror films, and the creative choices behind them. The film’s protagonist Busi navigates the torment of repressed trauma and stalking by a folkloric creature when she starts working at a derelict hospital in Johannesburg. Focused on saving her sister from their abusive home life, Busi is also harassed by her sexually aggressive boss Ruatomin. This cinematic violence causes the black woman to split into a younger version of herself, Gracie, as a mirror double, her gaze warped through visual language and conventions. Most importantly, The Tokoloshe’s use of cultural iconography also places African patriarchal traditions under a microscope, revealing both the good - a kindly blind spiritual healer and protective god - and the bad - a tokoloshe and the men who abuse their traditional powers.
The interviews also investigate if there is a specific hesitancy towards the genre from African filmmakers and why, and how much their cinematic roots could be found within the historical and modern image of Africa crafted by colonial modernity. These interview sessions formed part of research for a Masters CFMS minor dissertation ("'African will eat you alive': Cultural iconographies in African horror films" by Gabi Zietsman) that attempts to unpack how African filmmakers use cultural iconography in their horror films by using the theoretical paradigm of the artistic Black Fantastic and horror’s relation to other genres under this umbrella. Alongside other interview sessions with Congolese filmmaker Jean Luc Herbulot, these interviews help unpack whether an Afro-centred approach can give an overview of the African horror film landscape, and if there’s some element that can tie these African cinematic nightmares together as a collective.
Ethical approval for the interviews was granted by CFMS before conducting them, and the interviewee signed a consent form for the interviews to be uploaded to Zivahub with their name visible.
