The launch took place at the University’s Ocean Sciences Campus and was attended by traditional leaders, and representatives of the Nama, Griqua and Korona communities, the Department of Arts and Culture and the Department of Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs (COGTA).
The documentary series comes under the South African Research Chair Initiative in Ocean Cultures and Heritage, funded by the National Research Foundation and led by Professor Rose Boswell at the University.
PhD student Bayanda Laqwela, Dr Jessica Thornton, Professor Rose Boswell, Dr Sharon Gabie and Chad Cupido
“This event is not just about film,” said Dr Jessica Thornton, who assisted on the project. “It is an opportunity to immerse audiences in the cultural landscapes that shape our coastal regions and to raise awareness of the importance of preserving this heritage for future generations.”
Prof Boswell said, “Ecotones aims to bring these remote and often inaccessible communities to life.” She said she drove with students “for five years across five African countries. It has been a really phenomenal time. I’ve enjoyed being with students, post doctorates and communities. It has been most unbelievable.”
Ambassador Gail Baatjies, Paramount Chief of the ǃGori ǁ Ais Khoi Korana Kraal and Ba' Kingsley chanting during the screening break
A summary of the films is set out below
Ocean
Ocean is an ethnographic journey across South Africa’s west and south coasts and Kenya’s Lamu Archipelago, exploring how oceanic worlds shape heritage, livelihood and identity. Through the voices of small-scale fishers, surfers and coastal women, the film reveals the intimate, spiritual, and economic ties between people and the sea. It contrasts lived ocean knowledge with top-down governance strategies, exposing tensions between cultural continuity, extractive blue economies, and ecological decline.
Desert
Desert traces the intimate geographies of Namibia’s dune seas, where ancient landscapes and living communities tell stories of endurance, adaptation and displacement. “Through encounters with the Topnaar, Nama and Himba peoples, the film explores the desert as both sea and sanctuary,” said Dr Thornton.
Honey
Honey follows an unexpected trail of sweetness across Africa’s coastal landscapes, revealing how a simple substance connects ecology, gender and community. Beginning with ancient honey-gatherers and travelling through Pringle Bay in South Africa to Kipungoni in Kenya, the film uncovers how honey links fynbos fields and mangrove forests in a shared heritage of care, autonomy and ecological knowledge. Through the stories of beekeepers, bakers and coastal women, Honey illuminates how the hive mirrors human society where each role is vital, each act rooted in reciprocity.
River
According to Prof Boswell, River traces South Africa’s flowing waterways as vital arteries of memory, spirituality and belonging. From the mighty Orange to the quiet bends of the Birah and Kowie, the film journeys through stories of ancestral presence, ritual practice, dispossession and renewal. Voices of healers, chiefs, and everyday river dwellers reveal the river as both a tangible resource and a spiritual portal.
Return to the sea
This traces layered journeys of reconnection across Namibia, South Africa, and Kenya, revealing how histories of colonisation, displacement and ecological change continue to shape human relationships with the ocean. “Through stories of First Nations communities in Mossel Bay, ritual leaders in the Eastern Cape, small-scale fishers, and women seeing the sea for the first time in Namibia, the film captures a collective yearning to reclaim coastal belonging,” explained Prof Boswell and Dr Thornton.
Soul release
This film journeys to Lüderitz, where the winds of the Namib Desert meet the Atlantic, uncovering layered histories of colonial dispossession, industrial transformation and enduring spiritual practice. “Through the voices of Nama and Khoisan custodians such as Dikwe and Freyer, the film reveals how rituals like the Soul Release continue to connect the living and the departed across land, sea, and spirit,” explained Prof Boswell and Dr Thornton.
Entre Terre et Mer: L’esprit de Résilience aux Seychelles
This film explores how Seychellois communities have drawn strength and creativity from both land and sea in the face of colonisation, slavery and ecological change. Through the stories of the Forest Girl, the Fisherwoman, and the Octopus Queen, the film highlights women’s central role in navigating the forest, fishing the deep sea, and passing down intergenerational knowledge.
For Prof Boswell and Dr Thornton, “across these seven films, the research illuminates Africa’s coastal, desert, riverine and island ecologies as living archives of cultural memory, ecological knowledge, and spiritual connection. Each story reveals how people sustain belonging and identity through intimate relationships with place.”
Through a decolonial lens, the research calls for reimagining heritage governance and policy to honour Indigenous epistemologies, women’s knowledge systems, and community-led custodianship. Ultimately, the series affirms that resilience emerges where memory meets renewal. When people return to the land and sea not only to remember, but to reweave futures grounded in justice, reciprocity, and hope.
Prince Zolile Burns-Ncamashe and Professor Andre Keet
Deputy Minister of the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Prince Zolile Burns-Ncamashe, said at the launch, “It’s important to acknowledge young people (here) because we owe everything to the future generations – we have a duty to make sure that whatever we do, it engraves a footprint we can proudly bequeath to future generations.”
When young people evaluate the heritage that is handed over to them, the older generation could be labelled heroes or traitors.
“Heritage preservation has been predominantly emphasised by tangible assets such as monuments and landmarks.” However, Nelson Mandela University has dedicated itself to “illuminate the often overlooked domain of intangible cultural heritage, encompassing the rituals, beliefs, practices and symbols that embody the live experience of coastal peoples”.
He said at the heart of coastal communities lies the profound connection to the ocean, which shapes the identities, traditions and ways of life to an intangible cultural heritage such oral history, rituals, preaching practices and ecological knowledge passed down across generations.
“The Department of Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs can strengthen this bond by empowering traditional Khoi and San leadership structures to lead community-driven efforts” in documenting and revitalising these practices.
The deputy minister referred to the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing Parliament in German through an interpreter, a few years ago, while other world leaders address meetings of the United Nations in their own language.
He said his department can promote the use of indigenous languages and needs to ensure that resources are invested to develop lexicography and preserve indigenous knowledge for future generations.
Professor Andre Keet, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Engagement and Transformation, said in his welcoming remarks that the University is grateful for the trust and generosity of leaders of the communities that participated in the research.
“A university that better engages with its publics on an equal footing will be a university that will be better transformed.” The University needs to become a regular, normal citizen among other citizens and this project epitomises that.