Sanza Hanza (King Surfer)


Slamdance 09

Dir: Nadia Hallgren

The ghetto of Soweto outside of Johannesburg offers only one way out: the freedom of surfing on trains. This documentary short focuses on a band of young men named V.I.R.U.S (Very Intelligent Riders Usually Survive) in the largest ghetto in South Africa, population: 1 million. They find emancipation on the rails by either running alongside or on the tops of trains. Think Slumgdog Millionaire-style with less hustling and post-apartheid poverty. These cats do it for love of the game. They even refer to it as a sport, albeit a deadly one, even as they recount how one of their mates was there one second and dead the next.



The cinematography, courtesy Hallgren (Fahrenheit 9/11), is well framed and puts the viewer into the faces of the young men as they literally run between life and death. They do it for one reason as a young man nicknamed Tupac explains with a sneer, life is “bullshit” in Soweto and surfing the trains is a brief respite from the reality of the situation. Admittedly, I was unaware of this slum’s existence, and seeing the men as they vie for the title Sanza Hanza (Zulu for King Surfer), simply because they have no other options, is a sobering, enlightening, and exhilarating experience.


5 out of 5 *s


by Jon Paxton