One Table Two Elephants. 2018, 84 min, HD color. Created by Jacob von Heland and Henrik Ernstson.
One Table Two Elephants was filmed in Cape Town in 2014 and 2015 with a focus on knowing/silencing. Inspired by the “flat ontology” of Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, the film follows biologists, hip-hoppers and a revivalist urban shaman, to explore how race and nature are intertwined in the postcolony as a general condition of the world. Through shared ethnography, the film draws the viewer into a textured and rich relationship between people, things, technologies and places, and slowly but surely unravels a visual argument of deep-seated ontological and knowledge politics at the heart of the city. The film was nominated to the Nordic Dox Award with World Premiere at CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival in March 2018. It was also nominated to the prize Best Documentary Feature with its African Premiere at Cape Town International Film Festival (CTIF&MF).
Scholarly citation:
Von Heland, Jacob, and Henrik Ernstson. 2018. One Table Two Elephants. (84 minutes, cinematic ethnography, film, Color, HD, Dolby 5:1) World Premiere In Competition at CPH:DOX, March 20, 2018. Copenhagen: CPH:DOX. Stable Link (Open Access): http://bit.ly/1T2Ethefilm.