Design Indaba Film Festival 2010

Participating in a panel discussion about “Documenting Design” at the Design Indaba Conference, Demetrios, Hustwit and Pray will also be in attendance at selected screenings, offering a Q&A opportunity after the film.

Demetrios, the grandson of legendary midcentury husband-and-wife design stalwarts Ray and Charles Eames, will be presenting a programme of archived films made by his grandparents in the 1950s. An accomplished filmmaker himself, Demetrios will also be showing a selection of his own work. Exploring design as more than simply style, but a framework for solving problems, Demetrios’s films on design, sustainability and architecture have found a global following through his online DASFilmFest.com.

In turn exploring the ubiquity of design in the contemporary world, Gary Hustwit has generated a global cult following with his feature length documentaries, Helvetica and Objectified. While Helvetica explores how fonts and type have infiltrated every aspect of our every day surroundings, Objectified demystifies the world of industrial design and how products are made. These are films that are capturing the global zeitgeist of design moving from the elite to the masses. With the South African premiere of Objectified and the first public showing of Helvetica, local audiences will be thrilled to find out what all the buzz has been about.

Also generating international buzz, Pray’s Art & Copy will also be enjoying its South African premiere. Forming part of the official Sundance Film Festival 2009 selection, Art & Copy is about advertising and inspiration, revealing the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time. Documentary audiences will remember Pray from his award-winning stable of films including Hype!, Scratch and Surfwise.

Pioneering celluloid documentation of South African creative industries, the Headwrap series by Plexus films challenged local creatives from different cultural backgrounds and creative genres to collaborate. “Headwrap is doing more than merely showcasing local talent; it’s exploiting an artistic platform to indirectly tackle SA’s social schisms — gulfs that transcend gender, race and class,” wrote Business Day. Featured artists include Athi Patra Ruga, Blk Jks, Malika Ndlovu, Peter van Heerden, Justin Fiske, James Webb and more.