An interview with Serafina Ndlovu, who realized the short film “Bruja” together with Verena Korrodi and won the 1st prize at the Swiss Youth Film Festival in 2020.

 

Despite its brevity, the experimental short film “Bruja” comes across as eloquent, impressive and dark. In rhyming form and with a penetrating gaze, the protagonist, a young black person, speaks down to the audience from a kind of funeral pyre. In a clear voice and controlled anger, the person criticizes the hypocrisy of Swiss society, its myth of neutrality and the structurally systemic forms of violence. A form of critique that combines an intersectional perspective, informed by racist, classist and sexist experiences. 

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Out & About: What is the short film “Bruja” about? 

Serafina Ndlovu: BRUJA refers to a specific moment in individual and personal development processes. Many people in my environment have and had phases in which they, as Black people with different intersections of experiences of discrimination, experienced emotions similar to those depicted in the film. It’s about realization, anger, and a setting of personal boundaries.

In the context of BRUJA, loss of control refers to breaking out of toxic social structures.
Serafina Ndlovu

Where did the motivation for the film work come from and in what context did it emerge?

The motivation for the film came from the need to create a kind of snapshot or manifestation and was created in a workshop by Zeitversieglung.

What role does language play in the short film? Why did you decide to use a rhyming form? 

Since I’ve been dealing with text for a long time, it was obvious to me to incorporate an experimental or artistic layer from text. In this context, the rhyme form largely came about on its own.

“Bruja” (meaning witch) also functions as an insult for women* in many languages – why the title? Do you see it as a form of empowerment through feminist appropriation? 

The decision to work with the symbolism of a witch is not one I would make today. However, the symbolism of the burning of witches in Switzerland has a historical reference that I wanted to mention. My point was to address a general hypocrisy in Swiss culture, politics and history, especially under the guise of so-called neutrality.
Since feminist struggles in Switzerland also rarely reflect the racist (and transphobic, classist, ableist, fatphobic, and further exclusive) structures on which they are situated, this symbolism seemed fitting to me. 

There is repeated language in the film about “loss of control” – a threat to the existing system?

In the context of BRUJA, loss of control refers to breaking out of toxic social structures.

What reaction to your film work do you remember to this day?

No reaction but a very nice development I think is that I am still friends with the people who were involved in the film and that in general an indispensable network of great people from that time has developed.

What’s next? Are there any new projects in the pipeline?

I’m currently working on a larger writing project, a collaborative sound performance and have a few DJ gigs coming up again in the near future.

Interview by Catherin Schöberl