Sathima’s Windsong

by

Sathima 01Toronto Premier

Daniel Yon, Canada/South Africa, 2010, 54 min, in English

Saturday, 2 November 2013, 1:00 PM, Carlton Cinema

A portrait of South African jazz vocalist, Sathima Bea Benjamin, shot in New York, Cape Town, St. Helena and on the Atlantic Ocean. In her Chelsea Hotel apartment, home for over thirty years, Sathima patches together her journeys, from Apartheid’s ‘pattern of brokenness’, to a chance meeting and recording with Duke Ellington in Paris, to making a life in New York. Her narrative and reflections are interwoven with her music, and with commentaries on her life and times. Jazz, ships and the sea come together as metaphors in the film for meditating on exile, displacement and diaspora. Its title is inspired by Sathima’s hauntingly beautiful composition, Windsong.