This is a split-screen film focused on material culture, specifically that of three long-term Zimbabwean female migrants currently residing in Cape Town, South Africa. Through an exploration of the objects they brought with them, the objects sent back to their homeland, the objects left behind and their associated memories, stories of joy, loss, and hopes for a return to Zimbabwe are examined.

These Objects, Those Memories

Filmed on Super 8mm, Scenes from a Transient Home presents a fractured portrait of life for Zimbabwean migrants when they travel back home to visit. Christmas dancing, New Years Eve celebrations, house floods, and illegal gold panning are just a few of the events filmed by Roger Horn who bookends the film with a major life event for his family.

Scenes from a Transient Home

The primacy of culture. Culture over race. “culture leap (non-linear)” is composed of found home movies from South Africa and discarded 16mm film from the anthropology department at the University of Cape Town, salvaged by filmmaker Roger Horn while completing his PhD in Anthropology.

culture leap (non-linear)

"Land Changes Hands, but the Bees Remain in the Hive" is a short, found footage film which delves into the controversial Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) initiated by former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 2000. The program aimed to redistribute white-owned farmland to Zimbabweans across cultural boundaries, and was often accompanied by violence. Two decades later, a young white Zimbabwean woman reflects on her childhood experiences during the primary years of the land invasions and the lasting effects on her family, as well as the persistent racism within the white farming community.

Land Changes Hands, but the Bees Remain in the Hive

Against a backdrop of the beaches of 1940s South Africa, Questioning the Existence of Alec is a voyage shared by friends from adolescence to adulthood. Roger Horn masterfully uses 8mm found footage, stop motion and additional in-camera effects, taking us on a chimerical journey that blurs the lines between past and present. “It's as if you were never here.”