Cosmic Africa is a unique 72 minute High Definition feature length documentary film that both explores and sheds new light on traditional African astronomy and in turn global understanding of the world's oldest science. Capturing a remarkable personal journey for African astronomer, Thebe Medupe, it begins to fill the gap in documented African astronomy as well its resonance with African culture today.

Directed and filmed by the multi-award winning duo, Craig and Damon Foster (The Great Dance), it  was filmed in the heart of the Egyptian Sahara Desert; the precipitous cliffs of Dogon country in Mali and the ancestral land of Namibia's hunter-gatherers, Thebe unveils the deep connection humans have with the cosmos and weaves the past with the present and future.

project history
The Cosmic Africa film concept was conceived by Anne Rogers, and jointly developed with Carina Rubin of Åland Pictures, in 1998.  Directors & Directors of Photography, Craig & Damon Foster, come on board a year later. Field research was conducted by Ms. Rogers and Ms. Rubin in South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Kenya, Mali, Egypt and Ghana. Principle Photography commenced in January 2001 in Egypt, followed by Mali, Namibia  and culminated in South Africa in March 2002.   Filming was non consecutive, with a total of 12 weeks.   Non consecutive due to:  climate conditions, ceremonies as well as our shoot & edit, and shoot & edit approach.

The editing process took place between shoots, at the Foster brothers Cape Town based studio, equipped to handle high definition.   They acquired an Icon HD down converter, to facilitate the offline edit in standard definition.

High definition camera equipment was brought in from the United States, from Plus8Video.   This included two Sony high definition camcorders, the HDW 700, a Fujinon 20 x 7.5 lens, a Fujinon 10 x 5.2 HD wide-angle lens. The time-lapse of the night skies where filmed in 35 mm with the Arri 435 ES, from Media Film Services, Cape Town.

Sound design commenced at an early stage in the project, with Barry Donnelly - Head Audio Engineer of Cape Town based Refinery - working very closely with the Directors.
Mr. Donnelly composed close on 60 minutes of music for the soundtrack, of which all the classical pieces were performed by the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO), conducted by Bernhard Gueller. Donnelly collaborated with Grant McLachlan, a Cape Town composer, who came in at a much later stage in the project, to design new and enhance the existing classical pieces. Neo Muyanga, from the group Blk Sonshine, contributed to the film soundtrack through sourcing male and female vocal talent and musicians.  Neo wrote most of the African lyrics heard throughout the film. The score for Cosmic Africa was orchestrated by Keith Mattison. This is the first time the CPO have performed a movie soundtrack.

vision and style - Written By Craig & Damon Foster
At first it was very daunting to make a film about an African perspective of the Universe - such an enigmatic, huge and illusive subject. Not to mention that the stars are so difficult to photograph. The words of the 'Merlin like' figure of Annaye Doumba, an 87 year old spiritual leader in Mali calmed us considerably. He said '' the Earth and the Sky are like man and woman......to understand the heavens you must first understand our earthly ways''. We realised that for many African people the Cosmos is an extension of the natural world and that many of the daily activities of people on Earth reflect the movements of the celestial bodies in the sky.

We began to see a world view quiet different from our own. A view that showed us how very scientific our concepts of space and time were - how we existed in that bubble. This new 'view' was startling in its richness and openness. It was less concerned with answers and more interested in experience, in ritual, in the transcendent. We had to find a way to express this in film.

In this 'view'  the everyday world and the spirit world are seamless. So we kept the photography and the editing formal and classic, but we gave it an edge, a feel that would convey this way of looking at 'reality'. We used sound in a less formal way, subtly shifting perspective and pitch to give a sense of the inner world of shaman or diviner. Allowing the viewer a chance to see the cosmos afresh. There was still a vital element missing.

We still needed someone that the greater film audience could identify with. And above all we needed a story. A human story to give life and meaning to an essentially metaphysical subject. Thebe Medupe was that story. An African astrophysicist with a rural upbringing - a love of science and a passion for Africa's traditional cosmology. A man searching for meaning but caught between two very different worlds. A jovial, likeable man - bumbling and brilliant. Forgetful, with a razor mind for science and people. His childhood genius idea of building a telescope from an old plumbers pipe in a remote African village inspired the opening five minutes of the film. Stylistically these images are subtly de-saturated compared to the rest of the film to set them in the past.  Thebe Medupe the astrophysicist, working at South Africa's cutting edge observatory, represented Africa's leading technological nation.

The specific environments we worked in and the stories that were told to us, crafted the style of the film. The diversity of and uniqueness of the people that we met, dictated our journey and enabled very differing themes to surface.  As the central characters emerged the vision of Cosmic Africa became more evident.

The title 'Cosmic Africa' suggests the greater African perspective. Initially extensive research and recce's were made to 7 African countries. We feared the film would become a glorified travelogue and decided on Mali in West Africa, Egypt in North Africa and Namibia and South Africa in Southern Africa. The reasons were quite specific.

The bushmen in Namibia represented the oldest people in Africa and a hunter/gatherer/shamanic thinking. Arguably the oldest celestial stories on earth were still alive here.  The Ju/'hoansi of Namibia are master storytellers and we were forced to visualize their stories in way which told the meaning and still held the emotion behind them. We had planned the journey to coincide with a solar eclipse so we had geared the story around this event. A lot was riding on being able to capture the event and more importantly the people's reaction to it. In the editing we maintained the style of alluding to the danger the people felt with cutting in second phase images of lions hunting at night.

The dogon of Mali represented the many layered spiritual hierarchies and secrecy associated with subsistence agriculture. Jackal diviners, blacksmiths, hunter/sorcerers - all famous for their starlore.  The panoramic cliffs of Mali with fantastical festivals demanded an epic and classic big screen feel to our photography. The editing needed to simplify an incredibly complex way of life and also try and express what it feels like to be taken back a couple of thousand years in time. We relied on the images to express the power of the environment. We held shots a little longer and integrated the sounds of the location to hint at the harshness, beauty and power of the people.

The Naptans of Egypt, long dead, were nomadic pastoralists. They had built the oldest solar observatory known to science, over a thousand years before Stonehenge.  We were alone in the vast lunar-like landscape of Egypt's Western Desert and yet our story was about an ancient people who once lived here and were able to match the movements of the stars to the changing climate. We needed to film recreations in a way that demonstrated this mystical yet rich culture. We ended up filming scenes through water and fire - utilizing reflections and distorted imagery that we edited into the body of the film. In the beginning of Egypt we hinted at the presence of these long dead people and slowly the scenes develop into whole rituals that portray their knowledge of the cosmos.

The process in bringing this huge journey into a 90 min film was slow, but very exciting - 3 years in the making. Instead of the traditional shooting phase followed by edit and sound design, we opted for a more open, organic unfolding approach. The shoot was split into 4 phases as was the edit and sound. We first shot a single country, returned to the studio and edited that piece. At the same time giving indigenous music and vocal recording to our composer for inclusion in the soundtrack. The next shoot was designed according to the strengths and weaknesses evident in the edit. Once Mali, Namibia and Egypt were finished, we entered second phase.

This involved shooting the 35mm time-lapse and specific night skies to tell the appropriate stories. Second phase edit cut these in and adjusted scenes accordingly.

Third phase involved shooting and editing recreations and other special scenes like the big snakes underwater in Mali and the lion spirits in Namibia. As Thebe's knowledge and imagination grew through his journey, so more and more scenes that move across time dominate in the film.

Fourth phase was the dramatic recreations of Thebe's early life and his vision in bringing life and meaning to all his new found wisdom - the future. These scenes effectively begin and end the film. Fourth phase edit added these in and then did fine adjustments to the whole film. While fourth phase sound design re-synched to picture and worked hard at creating a sound that would be both have a feeling of big Cosmos and solid ground based views. Narrative and music had to be stripped out in quite a few places. The film was shot utilizing H.D. (H.D. or High Definition was developed by George Lucas for Star Wars). This had a dramatic impact on the style of the film by allowing flexible digital cameras to capture scenes with a brightness that emulates reality. The format is designed for the cinema experience and helps one create powerful images and limits the intrusion that traditional film equipment poses. H.D. is the future of cinema.

the music The making of' by Barry Donnelly
The music for Cosmic Africa was very much a collaborative process using over a hundred musicians, recorded in possibly over a hundred locations, from a makeshift studio in a hut in the middle of the Sahara to state of the art studios in Cape Town. This in itself created a major challenge for the composer, Barry Donnelly, blending traditional African and Western orchestral music of varying styles, and at the same time, maintaining the narrative quality of a major film score.

Research for the music started as early as the films pre-production phase, to accurately portray each region's individual style. Hours of location recordings, done by Sebastian Dunn the sound recordist, where poured over and would later become the inspiration for the music. Over 60 minutes of music was scored, combining location recordings and midi instruments that would later be re-recorded in the studio. At this stage, Barry collaborated with another Cape Town composer, Grant McLachlan, who helped with the arrangements of the more orchestral pieces and wrote some additional pieces.

The orchestral elements were performed by the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO), conducted by international conductor Bernhard Gueller with arrangements by Keith Mattison. This was the first time the CPO has performed a movie soundtrack, which was recorded with the help of Keith Davies at the Cape Town City Hall, in full surround sound (also a first in South Africa). Vocal arrangements were then added with the help of lyricist Neo Muyanga.

Nearly 6 months after the initial process, the music was finally mixed at The Refinery's Studio in 5.1 surround sound by Barry Donnelly.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding was done at Chris Fellows Sound Studio.

the foster brothers
Brothers Craig and Damon Foster have over 14 years of experience filming in Africa. Their primary intent lies in telling stories with the voice of Africa herself, and creating film experiences that enable the viewer to gain an intense and deep insight into the natural and cultural dynamics of this ancient continent. They explore the timeless and universal themes of the relationship between man and animal, and the relationship between them and the environments that they share.  The result is a portrayal of a reality that is rarely represented.

Their experience of filming in many diverse environments, often under extreme harsh conditions, is reflected in the substantial body and quality of work, completed.  They seek unique and challenging footage, which is enthralling and exciting, without compromising on integrity and sensitivity.

Their teamwork reflects a rare synergy and dynamism in their approach and delivery to the subject matter. They work closely together throughout every aspect of the process and have pioneered an organic style of filmmaking that brings new life to the screen.
They have their own studio in Cape Town, equipped to handle high definition productions. The studio is designed around the concept of an edit facility, within a relaxed organic environment, that feels very non corporate, but inspires a high work output. The facility relies heavily on natural light and air, but can very quickly be changed into a light free temperature controlled mini-cinema environment. The cinema set-up is integral to their approach in handling the style required for large format films.

For further information, visit their website  www.senseafrica.com

writer hugh brody
Hugh Brody is a writer, anthropologist and film-maker.  He has worked in the High Arctic, the North Pacific coast, western India and, most recently, in southern Africa.  His work has included several seminal books, inlcuding The People's Land, Maps And Dreams and The Other Side of Eden.  He has made both documentary and feature films.  He holds honorary positions at the Universities of Cambridge, Kent and Toronto.  He has been the recipient of a number of honorory doctorates for his work with and for Indigenous peoples around the world.