“All rhythms hold an encoded history.”

Lucia Udvardyova: Why did you decide to make a film about Mxshi Mo?

Amilcar Patel (AP) and Chris Kets (CK): Chris first met Mxshi Mo through an introduction from Hannah (DJ/producer Mina, from the UK) in Durban, while filming a music video for DJ Lag. At the time, Mxshi had been working with Mina and Scratchclart, with whom he released the Afrotech EP.

During the making of the documentary, we learned that Mxshi had previously reached out to Ahad (Ahadadream) and Sam (Sam Interface) from the label More Time Records. This came after he watched Ahad MC one of the first gqom Boiler Room sets (DJ Lag in London in 2017). More Time later secured support from the British Council to fund Mxshi’s debut album, Nkanyiso—the first fully UK–South Africa collaborative project blending gqom, amapiano, Afrotech, and UK funky.

The conversation around making the film arose from that album, and some funding became available to document the process. It began as a short, five-minute profile and gradually evolved into a much larger story as we began to unpack Mxshi’s journey.

Lucia Udvardyova: The story is told through a first-person narrative, using Mxshi Mo’s words, with elements of docudrama. We see Mxshi's childhood and upbringing as he grapples with his gradual loss of sight. Can you talk about the form, storyline, and concept?

AP and CK: The film uses perspective as a tool for empathy. By placing the audience within Mxshi’s point of view, we allow them to experience the world, momentarily, through the eyes of someone with visual impairment.

The use of certain positioning of the camera, lens flares, placing glasses and objects in front of the lens, and using focus as a tool helped us to emphasize these things. In the narrative, it was important for us to keep this perspective, letting us get inside Mxshi’s thoughts and way of thinking. For the soundtrack, we used only Mxshi Mo's original compositions, some of which he composed for the film and others which came from this album. By having only Mxshi's soundscapes within the film, and Mxshi himself recording the found sound, he then remixes in the film's soundtrack - we create a sonic expression of an internal journey Mxshi is going on, experiencing his world through sound and expressing himself through music.

Lucia Udvardyova: Towards the end of the film, Mxshi Mo achieves international recognition. What happened after filming concluded?

AP and CK: After the film shoot finished and we completed the edit, the film premiered in Cape Town at the Encounters festival (which Mxshi attended and played live at the opening night party).

Since then, he has travelled to the UK, performing with Scratchclart and Mina, and connecting with collaborators from the album. He also began working with visually impaired music collectives in the UK, such as Sound Without Sight.

After the film screened at the Kilele Music Summit in Nairobi, someone from Ableton reached out to Mxshi about advising on accessibility within their platform—that process is now in the works. He was invited to Kilele the following year, where he performed using a custom-designed Ableton Push that someone made for him after having watched the film. It allowed him to perform live in a low-light venue at the festival.

In the future, Mxshi plans to work with Ableton and other independent engineers on developing hardware and software for visually impaired musicians and is now able to tour internationally with his new Ableton Live setup.

Lucia Udvardyova: The film is produced by KAMVA Collective, a cultural production house dedicated to cross-media storytelling. Can you talk about the collective?

AP and CK: KAMVA Collective is a co-creation collective working between spaces of culture, science, activism, and conservation. We see KAMVA (isiXhosa for “the future”) as a third space for future-making and radical imagination. The collective aspect of it is just that - everything we do in KAMVA is the product of collaborating with others and ourselves.

We believe we have to use the power of collective storytelling to shape our collective futures. At KAMVA, we started “Third Space,” which premiered on Boiler Room (check it out on their platform), and follow us on Instagram @kamvacollective

Lucia Udvardyova: Amilcar, you have extensive experience focusing on African narratives, potential futures, and the role of technologies in them. Among your works is also the research project Africa AI, a documentary that focuses on the socio-political and ethical implications of emergent technologies in an African context. Can you talk about your work?

AP: Yes, I am an Africa No Filter #narrativechampion. In all the film and cultural work that I do - as a producer, director, and cultural worker - I try to find ways of looking at Africa from a new perspective that centres Africa's agency rather than placing it within old narratives of the colonial gaze.

I am very much interested in the intersection of technology, labour, and the left today. This focus has led me to my research project Africa AI, which is currently in development. Growing up in South Africa’s Labour movement during the struggle against apartheid, we can see now how the rise of “Big Tech” poses a new kind of threat to the future of the Global South. Within this shift, I also see new opportunities for societies to organize themselves from a more African-centred philosophy.

Lucia Udvardyova: Chris, your documentary practice is rooted in collaboration and in music and various musical subcultures and countercultures. You've previously made a documentary about gqom - a music style Mxshi is working with - as well as amapiano, and your latest film, Notes from the Underground, documents underground hip hop in Cape Town. What drives you to document these communities?

CK: I strongly believe in the power of culture—particularly subculture—to shift society and challenge the status quo. Growing up in post-apartheid South Africa, I saw firsthand the shaping and challenging of a new identity through music, art, and culture. Often, change in society emerges from the “underground” - rather than be

Counterculture thrives underground and is able to organically connect across continents. By starting locally and connecting globally, we can build these networks over time, gradually shifting oppressive narratives and eventually changing entire systems. As a documentary filmmaker and cultural producer, I feel my role is to help strengthen these connections and elevate these cultural movements to higher platforms.

Lucia Udvardyova: What distinguishes music documentaries from other forms of filmmaking?

AP and CK: Film as a language is a combination of image and sound, but music films add another dimension to this language. A music video can be a conversation between the space the artists or music is from - the textures, symbols, spirit, and architecture of a space.

A dancer's movement tells us about a place's history, and the music becomes a sonic map of its influences. All rhythms hold an encoded history. A music documentary works on these layers of felt and embodied history as much as the story being told through an interview.

Lucia Udvardyova: As independent filmmakers and cultural producers - besides the obvious issue of funding and finances - what are the challenges that filmmakers like you face these days, and does today's content-driven, social-media-focused era also offer any positives to creators like you?

AP and CK: Now more than ever in our history, documentaries and cinema play a vital role in creating something that people can trust. In this age of for-profit-driven algorithms fueled by rage and division, the filmmaker is a custodian of “truth,” “truth” in inverted commas, as it is more a sincere striving for a sense of truth than objective truth itself.

As critical as we must be of this current media landscape, filled with misinformation and deception within echo-chambers of increasingly isolated virtual realities. Here we are made into consumers, and no longer human beings. But we must have a deep sense of hope for us as humankind. We are beginning to adapt to this new environment, and our discernment grows as fast as technology. We create new technologies in the underground. Cinema and documentaries can give us, like music (and music festivals), that vital ceremonial space of gathering - a space to share stories and imagine new societies together.