Jozi Days: A film celebrating skate culture in Johannesburg

"Jozi Days" by local photographer and filmmaker Jonathan Kyriakou is a short documentary-style film that celebrates skateboard culture in Johannesburg.

Cape Town-based photographer and videographer Jonathan Kyriakou has created a short documentary-style film on skateboard culture in Johannesburg. The film, titled “Jozi Days”, uncovers a relatively undocumented side of the city. 

Johannesburg is one of the hardest cities in the world to skate: rough spots, private security and vast distances make creating a skateboarding film even harder.

"Jozi Days" features debut film appearance from competition-standard skaters T-Kay Modise, Taylor Sturgess and Trae Rice. The film seeks to paint a picture of the flourishing Jozi skate scene.  

“I had always wanted to go Jozi, and I had always had the idea of making a skateboarding film,” says Kyriakou. “So I packed bags and rocked up in Joburg. I knew the skaters I wanted to work with, and so for four months we worked on the project pretty much full time. Three or four days a week. I fell in love with the city as we roamed it extensively, constantly looking for new spots and places to skate.”

The film also features an all local soundtrack also celebrates the new wave of electronic music producers in South Africa. Featuring original music by Behr, Buli, Big Space, Hlasko, Leeu and Vox Portent. 

“I had been living with the extremely talented Alex Coetzee (Leeu) and got to experience the next generation of electronic music coming out of Johannesburg.”