“Amazonas Mbuyaga” is a phrase from the Luganda language that translates as “dance is a wave.” It reflects Ugandan filmmaker Moses “Teflon” Kizzy’s fascination with the universal language of dance. As a child, he was captivated by Michael Jackson’s movements and his brother’s dance rehearsals, but it was only through his collaboration with Joseph Tebandeke that he came to fully understand and appreciate the transformative power of dance.

Joseph Tebandeke is a Ugandan contemporary dance artist who uses his professional practice to advocate for inclusivity and to challenge perceptions of people with disabilities. Diagnosed with polio at the age of just four, Tebandeke faced significant challenges within a community marked by misconceptions about disability. Despite these obstacles, he persevered and found both passion and solace in sports and dance.

After a five-year hiatus, Jan Moss returns to the protagonists of his documentary Singeli Movement: Greed for Speed (2023) to produce five new music videos for the band and find out whether the circumstances of the artists creating Singeli music have changed in the interim.

Singeli is a rousing electronic music genre characterised by distinctive, intense vocals and tempos reaching up to 300 BPM. It originated in the mid-2000s in the low-income neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. Initially, Singeli culture bore a negative reputation and was often associated with thieves, rogues, and sex workers. Over time, however – and perhaps due in part to its growing international success – Singeli came to be widely appreciated and recognised by Tanzanians themselves as an authentic, identity-shaping expression of contemporary Tanzanian culture. Today, it is even featured at election rallies held by prominent politicians.

Moss’s work explores how this transformation has influenced the lives, careers, and artistic practices of members of the SingeliMovement collective. Excerpts from interviews are interwoven with five music videos for their songs, directed by Moss.

Lindi Dedek’s Not Like Other Trees reflects on two trees that are deeply connected with the cultures of people living on the land where they grow: the mpingo (ebony) tree in East Africa and willow in East-Central Europe. Divided into two chapters, this essayistic project traces the changes in attitudes and significance of local trees in cultural practices to reflect on the role of art in contemporary societies.

Mpingo has been used in wood carving by the Makondo community before the colonisation. Yet it was with the arrival of Europeans that their sculptures became commercialised and the practice transformed also by the imposed influence of Christianity. The discussion of the status of Makonde art is intertwined with the recognition that the mpingo tree is instrumental in negotiating postcolonial environmental justice. Once popular with missionaries, tourists and colonial employees for its exquisite black wood, the tree is now becoming expensive and scarce; its conservation efforts are linked with governmental overregulation.

The second part, Willow, explores the bond between people, trees, and craft and spirituality. This associative film shot on super8mm traces the connection between willow shapes, industrial structures, human and birds weaving, following the trees and folklore freely between Poland, Germany, Hungary and Czechia. Willows have once dominated the Central European landscape, but the wickering tradition has been disappearing till almost extinction.
The work was produced as part of the project “Deconfining arts, culture and policies in Europe and Africa (Deconfining)”

“The frame system has a basic grid of 1800 × 1800 mm. The wall elements are 50 mm thick and 375 mm high. They are used to construct the walls of the building. The panels have a T-shaped cross-section. The columns measure 160 × 160 mm and can be connected to the wall on each side.”
– Peter Wurbs, Aufbau des ANC-Entwicklungszentrums Dakawa / VR Tansania – Kindereinrichtung, Berlin 1988, IRS Archiv, Erkner, pp.10–11.
Between 1986 and 1992, pressed for time and unable to travel, East German architects working in Dakawa, Tanzania, implemented a building technology named for the occasion Wall-Panel-Column (WPC). This unusual architectural transplant coincided with significant political upheavals: the fall of the Berlin Wall, which heralded the end of Germany’s division, the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the release of Nelson Mandela, marking the end of apartheid.
Almost 40 years later, architect Esther Mbibo (Tanzania/Germany) and artist Michalina Musielak (Poland/Germany) explore in their films their own spatial and temporal positions in relation to these events. They map time in a globalised world where movement is easily available, yet still complicated and problematic. For who can be a tourist today, and who is an immigrant?
The artists document fleeting moments from their journey to Tanzania in search of WPC structures, alongside scenes of their daily life as German emigrants. They reflect on the contexts of their decisions, which – like the mobile artefact referenced in the project, whose origins reach back to World War II and Nazi-era temporary architecture – remain entangled in the historical inextricability of circumstances and meanings.

This experimental documentary film uncovers the historical and linguistic roots of menstruation-related lexicon and its associations with misogyny and patriarchy. The film explores how euphemisms – referred to in this film as the crimson code – shape societal attitudes toward menstruation. The film also dives into the real-world consequences of menstrual stigma, spotlighting the case of Kenyan Senator Gloria Orwoba, who faced public shaming in parliament after attending a session with visible menstrual stains.
The film contrasts pre-colonial African menstrual traditions – such as those of Kenya’s Kikuyu tribe, which celebrated a girl’s first menstruation – with the shame introduced during colonialism by the spread of Christianity. Kiaga juxtaposes this rupture with contemporary Poland, where women are rediscovering traditional healing practices around menstruation, such as those of the Szeptucha (whisperer), which were suppressed by organised religion and later displaced by male-dominated modern medicine during the rise of industrialisation and modern capitalism.
Connecting with Polish artist Iza Moczarna-Pasiek, who explores the subject of menstruation in relation to non-European traditional knowledge, Kiaga’s film reveals how culture, heritage, and health intertwine – showing how art can become a tool for recovering nearly forgotten knowledge across continents.
The work was produced as part of the project “Deconfining arts, culture and policies in Europe and Africa (Deconfining)”

“Come Home” is a short experimental film exploring the deeply rooted connections between people through shared rituals, knowledge, and the relationships we have with herbs and trees.

Shot in Kenya and Poland, the film reveals how nature connects cultures and histories, offering comfort, memory, and continuity. It highlights the essential role of women as guardians of traditional knowledge—healers, herbalists, and cultural bearers in both communities.

The film portrays nature as a globally unifying, living archive of culture, expressed through an experimental blend of symbolic imagery, natural landscapes, and multilayered editing. A poetic voiceover reflects on themes of land, memory, femininity, and healing.

“Come Home” is a celebration of our nurturing traditions—a reminder that we are one with nature, and that nature is our home.