Weaving through the lives of Faith47, Warongx (afro-blues), Emile Jansen (hip hop), Sweat.X (glam rap), Blaq Pearl (spoken word) and Mthetho (opera), the film culminates in an intertwined story.
Diving into the current of subversive art which fuels South Africa's many clashing and merging cultures, The Creators brings into focus the invisible connections among strangers' disparate lives—and the creative expression used to traverse the divide.
[1] A street artist illuminating the forgotten townships haloing South Africa's cities, Faith is a subversive activist creating for public art and a mother painting a new world for her twelve-year-old son.
When the deal did not turn out as promised, Ongx must play music on the streets, wash dishes and connect illegal electricity in the townships in order to make ends meet.
As an MC, B-boy and breakdancer from the seminal hip hop group Black Noise, Emile united a generation of youth during the fall of apartheid in the tumultuous eighties and nineties.
Emile participated in anti-apartheid protests and school boycotts during his youth, getting shot at by police and witnessing the death of friends fighting to overthrow South Africa's oppressive government.
The younger sister of Mr. Devious, a hip hop activist killed amidst gang warfare in their hometown of Mitchell's Plain, Blaq Pearl's life is imbued with the struggle between a violent environment and a peaceful core.
Using their music to explore the disconnect with impoverished communities in South Africa's Karoo, Sweat.X takes reunification into their own hands, leaving overt political protest in the past in favor of a new way for a new age.
- Mambo Magazine Abrams wrote in March 2011, "Given the unrest in the Middle East that fills our television screens each night, The Creators is a worthy companion piece.
-The Huffington Post Executive Producer of Law & Order Ian Biederman wrote that the documentary is "a beautiful and important contribution...to the literature of creativity and its endless capacity to fuel transcendence".