Biko Julian Voigts
For some time, I left myself out of the room when I wrote. In my father’s village in Zulu-land they call me a white man, weird right, and for years I tried to explain that away, position myself, make it make sense to whoever was listening. Then at some point, I stopped, stood at my grandfather’s grave, poured out, and it settled.
He put his Bantu children through boarding school in Apartheid days. Most men in his position would never have been able to, but he did. That sacrifice carried my father’s story all the way to Berlin. My father came as a freedom fighter and met my mother from a German family from Namibia. Standing there in the hills of Zulu-Land, I understood: The contradiction was never the problem, it’s the gift.
Pizza Passione
I fell in love with Naples because it gave me that feeling. The rawness of it, the way the old and the new exist there without fighting, both certain of their place. Pizza left that city, crossed the water, and New York got hold of it through migration. The City of all Cities did something entirely new with it. Now the two face each other across a table, tradition against reinvention, both absolutely certain they are right. And both are. This tension is Pizza Passione.
Yamirah´s Solar Explorers – Andromeda Galaxy
When I cast I am not looking in books, I am looking at my area, at the people already living the truth of what I am trying to say. I want the aunty, or the quirky uncle with the extravagant outfit and the little tick, the one who might annoy you at first but who you cannot stop thinking about because he dares to be completely himself. I used to try not to be that person. Now I know, that’s exactly me. And there is no reason to explain that.
Yamirah´s Solar Explorers – Andromeda Galaxy
Doors are opening, London, Amsterdam, and of course, Germany, what I have worked for is growing. Next is Cirque du Soleil – Alize, huge honor, then a basketball film: a top-tier athlete, a court, art and gritty Berlin. Because when I watch someone give everything to something they love, I feel the same thing I felt standing at my grandfather’s grave. The soil .. is mostly hard and the rose from the concrete.. is never just one story, it’s the common thread.
My grandfather rose on way harder soil, so there are no excuses. We will too…
Next project: Cirque du Soleil
Written in Berlin-Schöneberg 6:26 AM
Biko | WeMajor™️
