African Arty Beats brings the pulse of Africa’s arts, culture, and entertainment scene to airwaves across the continent, with reporter Nhlanhla Mahlangu capturing a week marked by deep visual storytelling in South Africa (SA) and an incredible feat of human endurance taking center stage in Nigeria.
The Kalahari Desert in SA’s Northern Cape province is getting ready to roll out the red carpet, but with a unique twist. From October 12th to the 18th, 2026, the Africa Human Rights Film Festival lands in the rural communities of Rietfontein and Andriesvale for a week packed with film screenings, community discussions, and creative masterclasses.
Festival organiser Davidson Muzivinga explains that the event skips the typical glitz and glamour of traditional film festivals to shine a bright light on marginalised voices and underreported grassroots issues. By taking cinema directly into local spaces, the festival uses visual art to spark lively conversations about water security, environmental justice, and the urgent need to protect vanishing indigenous languages like N|uu, which now has only one surviving fluent speaker, 90-year-old Ouma Geelmeid.
To push back against modern short attention spans, this year’s festival turns the spotlight back to long-format documentaries that encourage deeper reflection. Highlights include Sihle Hlope’s documentary on Siswati literary champion DS Matsebula, as well as the documentary Seed is Life, which explores how African farmers are protecting indigenous seeds to ensure food sovereignty.
Over in West Africa, the rhythm is fast and non-stop as 33-year-old Nigerian dancer Benjamin Daniel, fondly known as Benanza, turns heads at Freedom Park in Lagos. The seasoned dancer, with 18 years of professional performance under his belt, is attempting to smash the Guinness World Record for the longest individual dance marathon by grooving continuously for an astounding 168 hours, or seven full days.
His ambitious target aims to shatter the previous record of 127 hours set by Indian dancer Srishti Suresh Jagtap in 2023. Decked out in traditional Nigerian attire while effortlessly blending Afrobeats, Fuji, jazz, and Zouk, Benanza has turned Lagos into an open-air celebration, drawing cheering crowds on the ground and going viral across social media as the world watches and awaits official word from Guinness World Records adjudicators.
–ChannelAfrica–
