Welcome to the screening of the documentary One Table Two Elephants followed by a discussion, in English, with one of the filmmakers, Henrik Ernstson, University of Manchester / KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and Ulrika Waaranperä, Global Political Studies, Malmö University. Questions can be asked in Swedish.

One Table Two Elephants is a film about bushmen boys, a flower kingdom and the ghost of a princess. Entering the city through its plants and wetlands, the many-layered, painful and liberating history of the city emerges as we see how biologists, hip hoppers, and wetland activists each searches for ways to craft symbols of unity and cohesion. But this is a fraught and difficult task. Perhaps not even desirable. Plants, aliens, memories and ghosts keep troubling efforts of weaving stories about this place called Cape Town. 

Situated and grounded in lived experiences across a range of groups, this film follows different ways of knowing and tries to be a vehicle toward difficult yet urgently needed conversations about how race, nature and the city are intertwined in our postcolonial world where history is ever present in subtle and direct ways.

This  ‘cinematic ethnography’ is directed towards a wide audience, from the general public, to students and scholars, as it brings texture to understand a city like Cape Town, while providing ample possibilities to translate what is happening “there” to conversations about other cities and surroundings. It is based on years of research in Cape Town and was filmed in 2015 as part of a longer-term research and film-project on ontological politics and urban political ecology.