A festival of African creativity launched by Absolut

The concept will be called One Source Live – A festival of African creativity, taking place on 24 March 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The campaign kicked off with a four minute launch film called Africa On Fire, directed by Sunu Gonera from Egg films. Some of the embedded messages are: “This is a revolution. Creativity is our weapon. Change how the world sees Africa.”

“Africa is in the midst of a creative revolution. A new breed of artists, musicians, and fashion designers are changing the way the world perceives Africa. Absolut has always been a torchbearer for Africa’s creative revolution and will celebrate the continent’s creative pioneers by portraying them as the superheroes they are… and inviting the audience to join them in rewriting Africa’s story”, said Ryan McManus, Native VML executive creative director.

Three years ago Absolut Vodka and Native VML partnered with Khuli Chana to create a campaign titled Africa is Absolut, in which Absolut acknowledged Africa’s Creative Revolution, telling Khuli’s story of originality and authenticity.

A year later the brand continued the partnership with Khuli Chana and launched One Source – an African Musical Collaboration, which birthed a music video, title track, and album that became a war-cry for the continent’s ‘creative revolution’.

African art intervention

This year Absolut is looking to ignite and unleash African Creativity onto the global stage and thereby have a significant impact on the creative economy through:

• An African Art Intervention that will give Africa’s incredible art its rightful place in search results.
• A festival of African Creativity, featuring Africa’s most groundbreaking talents in music, fashion and art.

One Source LIVE will feature five artists who challenge the norm and are creatively changing the way the world sees Africa. Depicted as mythical characters, the campaign portrays the creative revolutionaries as the superheroes they are – with their art form as the superpower.

• Khuli Chana is The Dragon: His voice is his super-power. He breathes fire when he speaks, and calls the world to arms.
• Sho Madjozi is The Rain Queen: With her powerful words, Sho summons the weather and rains that enrich the earth.
• Trevor Stuurman is The Explorer: The Explorer has the power to reveal true character. He sees more than meets the eye.
• Fabrice Monteiro is The Iron Warrior: He can transform matter into art with a simple gesture of his hands.
• Osborne Macharia is The Eye: He has the power to immortalise life’s most meaningful and important moments.

“Absolut has a long history in supporting artists dating back to its incredible partnership with Andy Warhol in 1985 and since then the brand has collaborated with over 550 artists worldwide. We felt that African artists are underrepresented in a global context, and with this movie we want to champion the activities and creations of the most exciting creative visionaries of the African continent ,” concluded Iris LeBerg, marketing manager of Absolut.