18-07-2025
Sailing towards change: Julia Jansch navigates Azile Arosi's inspiring journey in 'The Academy'
Azile Arosi's inspiring journey from Khayelitsha to the world of skipping is wonderfully captured in 'The Academy'.
Image: Supplied
While Mandela Month is a time for reflection, kindness and generosity, it is also a reminder to help combat poverty and inequality.
And 'The Academy' on Disney+ reveals how some of the issues are being championed in pioneering ways.
As part of the streaming platform's 'People & Places: Shorts' collection, it celebrates individuals who have made giant strides in their profession despite facing numerous socio-economic obstacles.
Award-winning film-maker Julia Jansch.
Image: Supplied
Under the direction of award-winning film-maker Julia Jansch, the short feature spotlights Azile Arosi. This young woman from Khayelitsha discovers healing and purpose through sailing at The Academy, a transformative training program offered by the Royal Cape Yacht Club.
In a recent chat with Jansch, she shed light on how the project came about.
'I made a movie called 'My Father the Mover', which won at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2020. And a guy called Mandilakhe Yengo was my producing partner on it. When it won at the festival, there was a big grab to acquire it. Disney was one of the companies. I spoke with Marjon Javadi, the head of documentary film and series, there.
'She said to me, 'Do you know other movers like, you know, the film was about a gqom dancer called Stoan Move Galela teaching kids how to kind of find their superpowers through gqom dance.
'Because'My Father the Mover' was very, I guess, up Disney's alley in terms of its feeling of hope and upliftment, especially during Covid, where nobody could move.'
The request immediately sparked an idea Yengo had planted in her mind, mentioning his brother-in-law, Lindani Mchunu, who was at the helm of The Academy, which is a sailing institution established at the Royal Cape Yacht Club.
A behind the scenes shot of the making of 'The Academy'.
Image: Supplied
Their specific mandate is to teach kids from previously disadvantaged backgrounds how to sail.
She added: 'The Academy was a part of the Royal Cape Yacht Club's kind of larger systemic effort to transform from the inside out.
'And it's funny because when I met Lindani, he took me into the Commodore's office, and it's a great shot in the film where it's just all these old white men on the wall. And it said everything. Then he took me towards the back of the yacht club, where The Academy was.
"And I went into the room and all these young sailors were playing with the rope and making knots, and they were female, they were black, and it was just a totally different face.'
Arosi's story struck her as she searched for a protagonist.
'Most of the documentary work I do is social issue-related, and usually I'm looking for an individual story of transformation and transcendence, and what that comes to is figuring out the wound.
'Azile comes from a challenging socio-economic background. She's a female, which is not usual for a skipper.
"But beyond all of that surface-level stuff, I was looking for something very, very deep, and having spoken to all the sailors, what I was particularly drawn to was how the sea, specifically in the ocean, had healed a very painful part of Azile and her past.'
Jansch continued: 'She had a personal challenge in her early childhood development to deal with; her relationship with her mother was a painful point within her. In her coming to The Academy and learning to sail and being on a ship, she had found healing from this particular wound.
"And she says this incredible line in the film, 'The sea will speak to you, but you have to understand what it says to you'.'
One of the most challenging moments during the shoot was filming Azile skipping a boat around Robben Island for the first time in a race, during very gusty conditions.
Overall, Jansch is proud of her undertaking with this project, and she's already busy with her next production.
She shared: 'I love the glories of hope, and I love stories of faith. I love stories of people who have had to go through the fire and who come out the other end, stronger. I look for deeply psychological stories and exciting worlds. I love stories about unsung heroes and ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things.
'And stories that inspire, and I'm particularly charged by people who are seemingly unseen in our world. I would say that's my purpose and life's mission with creating a story. It's African stories for an international audience and sharing our beautiful lessons we've learned on a very kind of internal level, but also on a systemic level.'
'I've been working for the past year on a very interesting documentary, which is set in the world of car spinning. I don't want to give too much away, but it's it's got similar themes and it's a young woman's story as a world,' Jansch revealed.
'And in the same way that the sailing kind of saves Azile, spinning saves the girl. I'm very excited about it. We are in post-production in New York.'
