JEPPE ON A FRIDAY
87 min, Documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2012Directed byArya Lalloo & Shannon Walsh
Produced bySarah Spring, Elias Ribeiro, Shannon Walsh
LanguagesEnglish, French
A journey through a metropolis in flux.
Press reviews
The director's collective invites the audience to follow five people – each with their individual dreams, desires and struggles – in one Johannesburg neighbourhood during the course of one day. The GuardianFilm details
Synopsis
A city can be seen in news reports, crime statistics or the backgrounds of post-apocalyptic Hollywood blockbusters. It can be explored through guided tours, from behind rolled up car windows or through politics and history. In Jeppe on a Friday Shannon Walsh and Arya Lalloo bring together a team of women directors to explore a different city; the Johannesburg that beats in the men who occupy it. The result is an intimate, quiet portrait of five people from Jeppe, a decayed inner city neighbourhood. As they grapple with the existential and mundane over the course of a single day, these characters reveal the city’s specific textures, but also universal human experience; familial love is behind restaurateur Arouna’s success, nostalgia binds Ravi to his dusty framing shop, ambition drives JJ’s ruthless property development, tradition is at the heart of Robert’s all male Zulu choir, and everyday philosophy gives urban recycler Vusi his momentum. Part travelogue, part urban allegory, Jeppe on a Friday draws from a rich tradition of city-centered direct cinema, and offers a record of life in Johannesburg that demystifies the often maligned male-dominated metropolis.
Credits
Script and Director : Shannon Walsh, Arya Lalloo
Sound : Daniel Lagacé
Editing : Vuyani Sondlo
Production : Sarah Spring, Elias Ribeiro, Shannon Walsh
Qssociate Producer : Selin Murat
Financial partners
Parabola Films
Urucu Media
GFC Films
Visions Sud Est
ONF
Post Moderne
Technicolor
Direction
Arya Lalloo
Born in 1980 in South Africa, Arya Lalloo is an independent filmmaker of mixed heritage based in Johannesburg. She has written and directed documentaries for South African broadcast as well as the outreach documentary Citizen X in 2010. More recent work includes writing and directing on Alexandra! My Alexandra (2012), a historical documentary series about the famous township of the same name, and the feature documentary Jeppe on a Friday (co-directed with Shannon Walsh, 2012) that paints an intimate and sensory portrait of life in a regenerating Johannesburg neighborhood. Arya is broadly interested in social histories in post-apartheid South Africa and beyond. Much of her work is driven by a need to identify and provoke popular misperceptions and misrepresentations of contemporary urban African experience, by exploring, reimagining and celebrating often- invisible identities and histories. Filmography
Jetsam (2015 / 7min)
Jeppe on a Friday (2012 / 87 min)
Alexandra! My Alexandra (2012 / 48 min)
Citizen X (2010 / 52 min)
Rockey St to Recovery (2008 / 48 min)
Shannon Walsh
Shannon Walsh has made 5 award-winning feature documentaries: The Gig is Up (2021), Illusions of Control (2019), Jeppe on a Friday (2013), À st-henri, le 26 août (2011), and H2Oil (2009). Her films have been theatrically released in the US, Canada, England and South Africa, and broadcast on Al-Jazeera, CBC, SABC, Discovery channel, Netflix and many others. Her work has screened in festivals globally such as Hot Docs, IDFA, CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel, La Rochelle, Full Frame, Beijing and others. Walsh is an Associate Professor of Film Production at the University of British Columbia. She is a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.
Filmography
The Gig is Up (2021 / 88 min)
Illusions of Control (2019 / 87 min)
Disappearance: Hong Kong Stories (2017 / 13 min)
Under the Umbrella (2014 / 8 min)
Jeppe on a Friday (2013 / 87 min)
St-Henri, the 26th of August (2011 / 85 min)
H2Oil (2009 76 min)
Inkani (2006 / 13 min)
Fire & Hope (2004 / 16 min)
Sayeh (2003 / 37 min)
Revisit (2002 / 4 min)