Universities exist, obviously, for learning. But sometimes what comes with that learning and teaching is propaganda. The propagation of exclusionary ‘knowledge’ that resists any challenges. Some of the symbols that students find within such institutions. Such institutions have statues of oppressors and colonialists which support and uphold such propagation. That’s true in this continent as well as in a free South Africa.

Aslaug Aarsaether and Gunnbjorg Gunnarsdottir finds remnants of those symbols in South Africa. Like a statue of Cecil Rhodes in the University of Cape Town. But it won’t be there for long. They show archive footage and label it as 9^th March, 2015, when a long protester flanks the statue. An activist also narrates that someone threw feces at it.

Aarsaether and Gunnarsdottir competently cover those protests. This evolves into a movement that voiced the opinions from different perspectives like racial and sexual oppression. That includes interviewing the activists who discuss their own personal issues that almost made them stray from their work. But some of those scenes feel like digressions away from the stories they need to tell.

The Art of Fallism then depicts the evolution of the space where Rhodes’ statue was. It eventually becomes a place where activists install artworks like shacks where some of the poorer students live. Those shacks are also symbolic of the sub-movements sprouting from Fallism. The documentary also shows other black students dismantling that shack, but it doesn’t examine that act.

But despite of some oversight, the documentary captures a city and a country. Places with different opinions on how it should grow. It invalidates prejudices and show that post-Mandela South Africa is a country that can progress because of its youth. I hope this is a lesson for Ontario audiences who are numb to injustices like racism and sexism.

The Art of Fallism is one of the 135 selections available as part of the Hot Docs Festival Online.