Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 2:
ZULU SUMMER
Directors:
Joseph Litzinger and Eric Michael Schrader
World Premiere:
Santa Barbara 2019
About:
A Zulu trio from a small South African town travel to Butte MT.
In Butte MT, a pair named Dark and Clark run a small community radio station that has a pretty small audience. Online, however, they can be reached across the world, including 10,000 miles away, in Nongoma, South Africa. There, the operators of a small radio station tune in to learn how to better use radio and, through it, to improve their own struggling community. Prince Siboniso “Sbo” Zulu reaches out to Dark and proposes a crosscultural ecxhange, eventually working out a plan for the Prince and two of his colleagues to spend the summer in Butte. Though some townsfolk are skeptical, the Zulu delegation follows through, visiting Butte and meeting all the nice, curious people. Litzinger and Schrader’s film is well-meaning, with the aim of showing a conflict-free example of crosscultural understanding, but this does not make for a compelling feature. With countless scenes of the Prince and his companions meeting random Butte residents, explaining the purpose of their visit, hugging one another, and having an innocuously pleasant time sightseeing and sharing stories, the project ends up feeling like a quirky short stretched far too thin.
what (not) to doc 