Necktie Youth
Apartheid is gone and for the first post-apartheid generation of young people racial differences play no role in the South African “Rainbow Nation”. Definitely not for the kids growing up in Sandton, a posh suburb of Johannesburg. Here’s where these kids spend their time having parties, where there’s no shortage of drugs and alcohol. And here’s where 19-year-old Emily hangs herself in her parents’ garden - for everyone to see on internet through her own live stream.
In striking monochrome, debuting South African director and multimedia artist Sibs Shongwe-La Mer shows how Emily’s friends react to her suicide. Friends such as Jabs and September (Shongwe-La Mer), two black guys who seem to have enough money and time to do what they like best: binge on pills and booze. Shongwe-La Mer depicts a world free of material poverty, but where spiritual emptiness is all the more staggering.
Winner World Cinema Jury Award 2015.
