‘Old Righteous Blues’ Hits Right Notes in Portrayal of Fractured Cape Malay Community Coming Together

variety.com:

Christopher Vourlias Twenty years after a bitter rivalry tears a tight-knit Cape Malay community apart, the ghosts of the past threaten to consume a whole new generation in Muneera Sallies’ “Old Righteous Blues,” a story of music, family and reconciliation set within the colorful world of Christmas choir bands in South Africa’s Western Cape region.

The film, which plays this week at the Joburg Film Festival, was South Africa’s submission for the best international feature film race at the 97th Academy Awards.

It stars Ayden Croy as Hantjie Jansen, an ambitious young musician with a lifelong dream to restore his town’s Christmas choir band, the Old Righteous Blues, to the glory it had before a bloody leadership battle split it — and the community it once held together — apart.

The movie is rooted in the musical tradition of the kerskoors, which are believed to be unique to the rural Colored communities of the Western Cape.