Witness - Congo My Foot
Witness

Congo My Foot

A Congolese band feels the backlash of racism as migrants arrive for work on the World Cup.

Editor’s Note: This film is no longer available online.

Filmmakers: Okepne Ojang, Miki Redelinghuys, Kyle O’Donoghue

The 2010 World Cup was supposed to set the seal on South Africa’s final emergence from the dark shadow of apartheid.

But in the rush to build the new infrastructure, black South Africans soon began to turn on economic migrants from the rest of the continent.

Tino La Musica is a Congolese band based in Cape Town – immigrants struggling to make their way, and their music, in a foreign land.

Okepne Ojang, a Congolese filmmaker working in South Africa, set out to make a film about Tino La Musica.

But things began to go wrong right from the start when his “good news” story was swamped by a wave of xenophobia.

Congo My Foot follows the band’s manager, Muhammed, as he struggles to hold the band together, while at the same time lifting the lid on a darker side to the new South Africa.