AiM After Hours

Jesus and the Giant - UK Premiere

Screened with SMS Sugar Man on Thu 30 Oct at 10.30pm

A raped and beaten woman called Mary arrives at Jesus's door. Her attacker is her lover, the Giant. Jesus believes in peace but realises that something drastic has to be done...

This experimental short is an unlikely collaboration between Aryan Kaganof (script and editing), prolific high priest of transgression, and Akin Omotoso (director), Nigerian-born soap star, producer, director and intellectual. Together they bring a mutual abhorrence of rape, handled before by both of them in Nice to Meet You, Please don't Rape Me (Kaganof) and The Kiss of Milk (Omotoso) and a Jungian playfulness with archetypal characters. Jesus is transformed into a black woman. Like her historical counterpart she brings peace but in this scripture she can only do so by violence. Mary, the virgin raped by Father God, here the Giant, is a catalyst for the confrontation between the Princess of Peace and the Angry Old Codger with a coke habit.

Shot entirely on a digital stills camera (except for the final shot), 7,000 stills are stitched together in a montage that is as audacious as the concept.

SMS Sugar Man and Jesus and the Giant kick off the AiM After Hours series of late-night screenings, featuring provocative, daring and unusual African films. All the late night screenings will be introduced by South African writer, critic, director and actor Trevor Steele Taylor. Trevor kindly programmed the AiM After Hours series and provided synopses for the films.