MUSIC IS MY LIFE

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By Mpumi Supa MBELE

FILMOPTION INTERNATIONAL - as SALES All rights, World / DISTR Theatrical, TV, DVD-video, VOD, Airline, World, CANADA

Documentary - Completed 2022

Festivals
& Awards

Encounters South African International Documentary Festival 2022

Official Selection

Durban International Film Festival 2022

Official Selection

Joburg Film Festival 2023

Official Selection

Aus & NZ South African Film Festival 2023

Official Selection

Pan African Film Festival 2023

Official Selection

Cascade Festival of African Films 2023

Official Selection

New African Film Festival 2023

Official Selection

- Year of production
- 2022
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- SOUTH AFRICA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Mpumi Supa MBELE
- Writer(s)
- Mpumi Supa MBELE
- Producer(s)
- Carolyn CAREW
- Synopsis
- Music is My Life tells the story of South African musician, the late Joseph Shabalala, who rose to international fame with his band Ladysmith Black Mambazo after contributing to Paul Simon’s massively successful Graceland album. Bathed in Ladysmith’s powerful music, the documentary covers the full breadth of the singer’s life, from his early years in rural South Africa to the height of Shabalala’s global success to his passing in 2020, at the age of 79.
  Along with footage from the Graceland recording sessions, the film introduces us to many of the luminaries who worked with Shabalala, including Dolly Parton, Whoopi Goldberg and Stevie Wonder. The film also documents the complex history of Isicathamiya music – the musical idiom whose boundaries he helped to expand – in terms of the political and musical forces that helped to form it.
  Filmed over five years, Music is my Life gives us extraordinary access to Shabalala’s creative process. Locating his music at the heart of the South African experience as well as in its physical heartlands, Music is my Life is an engaging tribute to one of the country’s most distinct musical forms and the man with the beautifully resonant voice who made it famous.