Displaced Screens: African Narratives of Migration, Belonging, and the Decolonial Gaze
Kagata Mamabolo
Kagata Mamabolo
Africans are historically rooted in the philosophy of being nomads. Our ancestors moved across the continent in search of resources and perhaps just for the sake of adventure, suggesting why immigration, displacement, and the search for belonging are central threads in African cinema. However, these themes are not just a representation of how our ancestors defied the ideas of impermanence but also reflections of colonialism, dispossession and the ongoing struggle for cultural survival. This is where modern filmmakers are decolonising the gaze by reshaping how immigration is represented, not as just a socio-political statistic but also as a deeply human, spiritual and aesthetic journey. Two South African short films have struck me with these reflections about displacement and the concept of home in the African mindset: Amazeze (2025) Directed by Jordy Sank and Why the Cattle Wait (2024) Directed by Phumi Morare. Both films present textured explorations of displacement and belonging, employing imagery and narrative tools that not only resist colonial frameworks but also embrace an African-centred cinematic language.
Amazeze (2025) follows Tonderai, a young Zimbabwean boy living in a South African township amid xenophobic violent attacks. The film opens on a rather intense night, in which his mother has not returned home from work and he, along with his sickly brother, need water. The film follows Tonderai through the compressed passages and dark alleys in a simple pursuit of just trying to fetch water, while trying to avoid the community mob that is on the move on a mission to remove foreign nationals. The audiovisual elements of the film evoke claustrophobia and danger, through the film’s language switch from Shona to isiZulu, how the camera focuses on his small structure amongst the tin shacks and the sound design, which follows his heavy breathing in fear. The cinematic tension is amplified through shadows, narrow corridors, and intimacy, reminding us that for the displaced, even familiar terrain becomes dangerous.
Amazeze places emphasis on the disorientating aspect of being an immigrant, especially for a young child like Tonderai and his brother. It shows that immigration is not only about the external but also the internal fragmentation and can disrupt the cultural anchor that ties an individual to their place of origin. Through its visual language, Amazeze resists the Western cinematic impulse to dramatise immigration as a heroic journey of triumph. Instead, the film foregrounds ambivalence, dislocation, and longing, presenting immigration as a site of both survival and cultural erasure.
In a similar way, Why The Cattle Wait (2024) directed by Phumi Morare, taps into the more mythical and folklore aspect of African displacement. The film tells the story of Nomvula, an Nguni goddess who returns to Earth to reclaim her mortal lover before she carries out the mission she was given to destroy all of Earth and let it be reborn. Through shape-shifting and emotional persistence, she attempts to reconcile love and loss, a cinematic echo of decolonial desire to reanchor spiritual belonging through ancestral stories. The film’s narrative mirrors African oral traditions: cyclical, poetic, and rhythm-bound. Nomvula's journey, much like Tonderai in Amazeze (2025) in its more subtle way, reminds viewers that belonging is spiritual and ancestral, not confined to geography or corporeal permanence.
The film uses symbolism as a way of challenging the Western aesthetic. The film situates cattle not only as symbols of wealth and sustenance but as cultural metaphors for patience, ancestry, and continuity. The story unfolds at a deliberately slow tempo, echoing the cyclical rhythms of nature and resisting the demand for speed and productivity. Even the storm that takes Thandiwe’s family is not as overwhelming and dramatic, it still maintains the soft, poetic form that the film suggests from the beginning. The choice of using the rural homestead as a setting also connects to yet another aspect of African history that has been marginalised due to colonial stereotypes, and presents the rural homestead as being the spiritual endurance of communities in African settings. Through its mythic and symbolic lens, Why the Cattle Wait redefines belonging not in terms of physical location but in the persistence of ancestral ties and collective memory.
With that being said, I deeply enjoyed both films because they had a profound emotional impact and celebrated the African body very well, be it through colour, the themes of spirituality, the wardrobe, or the lighting. Both films resist the flattening of African narratives into mere stories of suffering and instead breathe new life into the discourse of immigration and belonging. Amazeze (2025) roots us in the claustrophobic immediacy of displacement, revealing its physical and psychological toll, while Why the Cattle Wait (2024) reminds us of the ancestral and spiritual threads that tether Africans to notions of home beyond borders. Together, these works affirm that African cinema is not only a space of representation but also one of reclamation, reclaiming language, rhythm, and ways of seeing and feeling that colonial gazes attempted to erase.
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About Kagata
Kagata Damaries Mamabolo is a storyteller, filmmaker, and writer born in Limpopo and based in Johannesburg. Her work lives at the intersection of memory, culture, and creative resistance. She uses film, fiction, and visual art to explore African identity, mental landscapes, and the quiet power of everyday life.
Currently completing my BA Honours in Film and Television at the University of the Witwatersrand, she’s passionate about decolonial theory, cinematic storytelling, and the ways art can shift perspective. Whether she’s behind a camera, writing a script, or curating content, she is always guided by the same question: What truths still need telling?
Beyond academia, she is deeply drawn to fashion, history, literature, and music, disciplines that help her stretch the boundaries of her storytelling. She believes in the archive, the imagination, and the urgency of creating work that speaks back to silence.
She doesn't just make things to be seen. She makes things to be felt.
Africans are historically rooted in the philosophy of being nomads. Our ancestors moved across the continent in search of resources and perhaps just for the sake of adventure, suggesting why immigration, displacement, and the search for belonging are central threads in African cinema. However, these themes are not just a representation of how our ancestors defied the ideas of impermanence but also reflections of colonialism, dispossession and the ongoing struggle for cultural survival. This is where modern filmmakers are decolonising the gaze by reshaping how immigration is represented, not as just a socio-political statistic but also as a deeply human, spiritual and aesthetic journey. Two South African short films have struck me with these reflections about displacement and the concept of home in the African mindset: Amazeze (2025) Directed by Jordy Sank and Why the Cattle Wait (2024) Directed by Phumi Morare. Both films present textured explorations of displacement and belonging, employing imagery and narrative tools that not only resist colonial frameworks but also embrace an African-centred cinematic language.
Amazeze (2025) follows Tonderai, a young Zimbabwean boy living in a South African township amid xenophobic violent attacks. The film opens on a rather intense night, in which his mother has not returned home from work and he, along with his sickly brother, need water. The film follows Tonderai through the compressed passages and dark alleys in a simple pursuit of just trying to fetch water, while trying to avoid the community mob that is on the move on a mission to remove foreign nationals. The audiovisual elements of the film evoke claustrophobia and danger, through the film’s language switch from Shona to isiZulu, how the camera focuses on his small structure amongst the tin shacks and the sound design, which follows his heavy breathing in fear. The cinematic tension is amplified through shadows, narrow corridors, and intimacy, reminding us that for the displaced, even familiar terrain becomes dangerous.
Amazeze places emphasis on the disorientating aspect of being an immigrant, especially for a young child like Tonderai and his brother. It shows that immigration is not only about the external but also the internal fragmentation and can disrupt the cultural anchor that ties an individual to their place of origin. Through its visual language, Amazeze resists the Western cinematic impulse to dramatise immigration as a heroic journey of triumph. Instead, the film foregrounds ambivalence, dislocation, and longing, presenting immigration as a site of both survival and cultural erasure.
In a similar way, Why The Cattle Wait (2024) directed by Phumi Morare, taps into the more mythical and folklore aspect of African displacement. The film tells the story of Nomvula, an Nguni goddess who returns to Earth to reclaim her mortal lover before she carries out the mission she was given to destroy all of Earth and let it be reborn. Through shape-shifting and emotional persistence, she attempts to reconcile love and loss, a cinematic echo of decolonial desire to reanchor spiritual belonging through ancestral stories. The film’s narrative mirrors African oral traditions: cyclical, poetic, and rhythm-bound. Nomvula's journey, much like Tonderai in Amazeze (2025) in its more subtle way, reminds viewers that belonging is spiritual and ancestral, not confined to geography or corporeal permanence.
The film uses symbolism as a way of challenging the Western aesthetic. The film situates cattle not only as symbols of wealth and sustenance but as cultural metaphors for patience, ancestry, and continuity. The story unfolds at a deliberately slow tempo, echoing the cyclical rhythms of nature and resisting the demand for speed and productivity. Even the storm that takes Thandiwe’s family is not as overwhelming and dramatic, it still maintains the soft, poetic form that the film suggests from the beginning. The choice of using the rural homestead as a setting also connects to yet another aspect of African history that has been marginalised due to colonial stereotypes, and presents the rural homestead as being the spiritual endurance of communities in African settings. Through its mythic and symbolic lens, Why the Cattle Wait redefines belonging not in terms of physical location but in the persistence of ancestral ties and collective memory.
With that being said, I deeply enjoyed both films because they had a profound emotional impact and celebrated the African body very well, be it through colour, the themes of spirituality, the wardrobe, or the lighting. Both films resist the flattening of African narratives into mere stories of suffering and instead breathe new life into the discourse of immigration and belonging. Amazeze (2025) roots us in the claustrophobic immediacy of displacement, revealing its physical and psychological toll, while Why the Cattle Wait (2024) reminds us of the ancestral and spiritual threads that tether Africans to notions of home beyond borders. Together, these works affirm that African cinema is not only a space of representation but also one of reclamation, reclaiming language, rhythm, and ways of seeing and feeling that colonial gazes attempted to erase.
————
About Kagata
Kagata Damaries Mamabolo is a storyteller, filmmaker, and writer born in Limpopo and based in Johannesburg. Her work lives at the intersection of memory, culture, and creative resistance. She uses film, fiction, and visual art to explore African identity, mental landscapes, and the quiet power of everyday life.
Currently completing my BA Honours in Film and Television at the University of the Witwatersrand, she’s passionate about decolonial theory, cinematic storytelling, and the ways art can shift perspective. Whether she’s behind a camera, writing a script, or curating content, she is always guided by the same question: What truths still need telling?
Beyond academia, she is deeply drawn to fashion, history, literature, and music, disciplines that help her stretch the boundaries of her storytelling. She believes in the archive, the imagination, and the urgency of creating work that speaks back to silence.
She doesn't just make things to be seen. She makes things to be felt.
Africans are historically rooted in the philosophy of being nomads. Our ancestors moved across the continent in search of resources and perhaps just for the sake of adventure, suggesting why immigration, displacement, and the search for belonging are central threads in African cinema. However, these themes are not just a representation of how our ancestors defied the ideas of impermanence but also reflections of colonialism, dispossession and the ongoing struggle for cultural survival. This is where modern filmmakers are decolonising the gaze by reshaping how immigration is represented, not as just a socio-political statistic but also as a deeply human, spiritual and aesthetic journey. Two South African short films have struck me with these reflections about displacement and the concept of home in the African mindset: Amazeze (2025) Directed by Jordy Sank and Why the Cattle Wait (2024) Directed by Phumi Morare. Both films present textured explorations of displacement and belonging, employing imagery and narrative tools that not only resist colonial frameworks but also embrace an African-centred cinematic language.
Amazeze (2025) follows Tonderai, a young Zimbabwean boy living in a South African township amid xenophobic violent attacks. The film opens on a rather intense night, in which his mother has not returned home from work and he, along with his sickly brother, need water. The film follows Tonderai through the compressed passages and dark alleys in a simple pursuit of just trying to fetch water, while trying to avoid the community mob that is on the move on a mission to remove foreign nationals. The audiovisual elements of the film evoke claustrophobia and danger, through the film’s language switch from Shona to isiZulu, how the camera focuses on his small structure amongst the tin shacks and the sound design, which follows his heavy breathing in fear. The cinematic tension is amplified through shadows, narrow corridors, and intimacy, reminding us that for the displaced, even familiar terrain becomes dangerous.
Amazeze places emphasis on the disorientating aspect of being an immigrant, especially for a young child like Tonderai and his brother. It shows that immigration is not only about the external but also the internal fragmentation and can disrupt the cultural anchor that ties an individual to their place of origin. Through its visual language, Amazeze resists the Western cinematic impulse to dramatise immigration as a heroic journey of triumph. Instead, the film foregrounds ambivalence, dislocation, and longing, presenting immigration as a site of both survival and cultural erasure.
In a similar way, Why The Cattle Wait (2024) directed by Phumi Morare, taps into the more mythical and folklore aspect of African displacement. The film tells the story of Nomvula, an Nguni goddess who returns to Earth to reclaim her mortal lover before she carries out the mission she was given to destroy all of Earth and let it be reborn. Through shape-shifting and emotional persistence, she attempts to reconcile love and loss, a cinematic echo of decolonial desire to reanchor spiritual belonging through ancestral stories. The film’s narrative mirrors African oral traditions: cyclical, poetic, and rhythm-bound. Nomvula's journey, much like Tonderai in Amazeze (2025) in its more subtle way, reminds viewers that belonging is spiritual and ancestral, not confined to geography or corporeal permanence.
The film uses symbolism as a way of challenging the Western aesthetic. The film situates cattle not only as symbols of wealth and sustenance but as cultural metaphors for patience, ancestry, and continuity. The story unfolds at a deliberately slow tempo, echoing the cyclical rhythms of nature and resisting the demand for speed and productivity. Even the storm that takes Thandiwe’s family is not as overwhelming and dramatic, it still maintains the soft, poetic form that the film suggests from the beginning. The choice of using the rural homestead as a setting also connects to yet another aspect of African history that has been marginalised due to colonial stereotypes, and presents the rural homestead as being the spiritual endurance of communities in African settings. Through its mythic and symbolic lens, Why the Cattle Wait redefines belonging not in terms of physical location but in the persistence of ancestral ties and collective memory.
With that being said, I deeply enjoyed both films because they had a profound emotional impact and celebrated the African body very well, be it through colour, the themes of spirituality, the wardrobe, or the lighting. Both films resist the flattening of African narratives into mere stories of suffering and instead breathe new life into the discourse of immigration and belonging. Amazeze (2025) roots us in the claustrophobic immediacy of displacement, revealing its physical and psychological toll, while Why the Cattle Wait (2024) reminds us of the ancestral and spiritual threads that tether Africans to notions of home beyond borders. Together, these works affirm that African cinema is not only a space of representation but also one of reclamation, reclaiming language, rhythm, and ways of seeing and feeling that colonial gazes attempted to erase.
————
About Kagata
Kagata Damaries Mamabolo is a storyteller, filmmaker, and writer born in Limpopo and based in Johannesburg. Her work lives at the intersection of memory, culture, and creative resistance. She uses film, fiction, and visual art to explore African identity, mental landscapes, and the quiet power of everyday life.
Currently completing my BA Honours in Film and Television at the University of the Witwatersrand, she’s passionate about decolonial theory, cinematic storytelling, and the ways art can shift perspective. Whether she’s behind a camera, writing a script, or curating content, she is always guided by the same question: What truths still need telling?
Beyond academia, she is deeply drawn to fashion, history, literature, and music, disciplines that help her stretch the boundaries of her storytelling. She believes in the archive, the imagination, and the urgency of creating work that speaks back to silence.
She doesn't just make things to be seen. She makes things to be felt.