Pieter Hugo - The Hyena and Other Men
The Hyena and Other men is the story of men, who in the company of hyenas, pythons and baboons, earn their living doing street performances for the crowd and selling traditional medicine. Captivated by a picture he came across in a South-African news paper depicting men with their hyenas in the streets of Lagos and Nigeria, Pieter Hugo decided to go and meet them. A few weeks later, accompanied by a local reporter, they hooked up with them in shanty town on the outskirts of Abuja, to take to the road with this troupe and to get to know their fascinating world a little better. Bit by bit, he got to meet the animal merchants, with their traditional rites and strove to photograph their daily round. He quickly realized that what really interested him in this subject was the hybrid crossover of the urban and the wild and the paradoxical, often very affectionate, at other times cruel and brutal, relationship that the merchants have with their animals.
Paolo Woods - Chinafrique
In 2007, Paolo Woods set out to recount the adventure of the conquest of the African continent by the Chinese. In search of coveted raw materials - copper, uranium and timber - Beijing has sent forth its most adventurous companies and entrepreneurs.
500.000 Chinese emigrants to Africa are striving to make their fortune, in a continent which the West only deemed worthy of receiving humanitarian aide. Some are managing large conglomerates, while others are selling bargain items along the roadsides of some of the world's poorest countries. Accompanied by the journalist Serge Michel, Paolo Woods travelled across 15 countries, criss-crossing the entire continent to encounter these two very different worlds, from the threatened forests of the Congo to the karaoke bars of Nigeria, along the pipelines of Sudan and the railroads of Angola, from the top ministries in the capitals to the devastated countryside.
Chinafrique also tells us of a bygone era. The Chinese have little in common with the former colonisers - they build roads, hospitals and schools. For the Africans, it's a new phenomenon which makes no claims of democracy or transparency, a law beyond dictatorial regimes. The images in Chinafrique are a rare and surprising portrait of an unsuspected here and now, as well as a condensed portrait of a globalized world.
Mikhael Subotzky
Having already carried out several photographic projects in South African prisons, Mikhael Subotzky decided to spend time in Beaufort West to sketch a portrait of the town. Between 2006 and 2008, he would return there regularly, to live with the people, going out to meet them in the company of Major, a very popular guy about town. He took a particular interest in problems of marginalization, incarceration and disillusion to create an inventory of the social reality of South Africa in the post-Apartheid world.
Three Stories
CNA Centre National de l'AudiovisuelL
Dudelange, Luxenbourg
28 Mar - 31 May 2009
www.cna.lu
