SXSW Spotlight: Ubuntu

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 8, 2008

The beauty of events like South by Southwest is that you just never know who you are going to run into. Sitting in the Ikea Lounge at the Austin Convention Center, Peter and I began randomly chatting with a few festival denizens. It turns out that one of them was David Serota, who produced, shot and directed the SXSWclick Really Real Shorts Award winning film Ubuntu. As any filmmaker would do, he suggested we take a look at his short. “It’s only 3 minutes and 12 seconds of your life,” he explained. And who can really argue with that.

It turns out that he’s made a short film that is quite good. In fact, for only three minutes and change, it tells an amazing story. Ubuntu is about the Soweto Kliptown Youth Organization (SKY) — an after school program that teaches the arts to children as educational therapy. The term Ubuntu (which is completely unrelated to the Linux operating system, by the way) represents the belief that through others, you become a better person.

I was truly impressed with this little short and can see why it won one of the SXSWclick 2007 Awards. It moves quick, so you really have to pay attention, but if you can keep your A.D.D in check for 3:12, you are in for a treat. It is a treat that we are happy to share with you below:

Ubuntu is currently hosted over at iThentic.

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