Necktie Youth

Anyone who grows up in Sandton spends a lot of time hanging out at pools and drug-filled parties – for this part of Johannesburg is the richest spot in the whole of Africa. Necktie Youth portrays this first post-apartheid gilded youth in striking black-and-white. Soft colours are reserved for their childhood memories of the early years of the rainbow nation. White 19-year-old Emily did not understand the codes of their set and could not take the pace of the ever-changing, fleeting liaisons, says the super cool, black and privileged September when he tries to explain to a TV reporter why Emily hung herself in her parents’ garden. She even positioned her camera in such a way that her suicide could be streamed live. In his film – in which he also plays a leading role – filmmaker and multimedia artist Sibs Shongwe-La Mer portrays a world in South Africa he knows like the back of his hand, a world where Mandela is now only a gold-framed icon. In today’s Johannesburg this icon collides with reality: it is no longer a question of the conflict between black and white, instead confrontation plots a rapid zigzag course, moulding the dreams and excesses of young people of every colour. (Text Berlinale, Panorama)

Keywords

  • Yony Leyser
  • drugs
  • media
  • Mental Health
  • mourning
  • psychology
  • youth

Actors

  • Sibs Shongwe-La Mer
  • Bonko Khoza
  • Colleen Balchin
  • Kamogelo Moloi
  • Emma Tollman

Director

  • Sibs Shongwe-La Mer

Drama


1h 26min


16

EN


EN

DE

Netherlands
South Africa
2015
At pool parties in the richest part of South Africa, the post-apartheid dreams of an entire generation perish in a drug-fueled dystopia.

At pool parties in the richest part of South Africa, the post-apartheid dreams of an entire generation perish in a drug-fueled dystopia.


Anyone who grows up in Sandton spends a lot of time hanging out at pools and drug-filled parties – for this part of Johannesburg is the richest spot in the whole of Africa. Necktie Youth portrays this first post-apartheid gilded youth in striking black-and-white.


Soft colours are reserved for their childhood memories of the early years of the rainbow nation. White 19-year-old Emily did not understand the codes of their set and could not take the pace of the ever-changing, fleeting liaisons, says the super cool, black and privileged September when he tries to explain to a TV reporter why Emily hung herself in her parents’ garden. She even positioned her camera in such a way that her suicide could be streamed live.


In his film – in which he also plays a leading role – filmmaker and multimedia artist Sibs Shongwe-La Mer portrays a world in South Africa he knows like the back of his hand, a world where Mandela is now only a gold-framed icon. In today’s Johannesburg this icon collides with reality: it is no longer a question of the conflict between black and white, instead confrontation plots a rapid zigzag course, moulding the dreams and excesses of young people of every colour. (Text Berlinale, Panorama)

Festivals

Cast & Crew