An Inconsolable Memory is Aryan Kaganof’s film about the Eoan Group. Combining rare archival film footage of District Six and Eoan’s opera performances with contemporary documentation and interviews, An Inconsolable Memory forges documentary narrative and poetic meditation on memory into a single compelling form. What was Eoan? What did it mean to the people who took part in its many productions? These questions propel Kaganof’s documentary, but form only the surface of a richer and deeply tragic story. An Inconsolable Memory dwells on what it meant to be “coloured” in apartheid South Africa, how legislated “coloureds” could perform Italian opera and the painful compromises ordinary people had to make to survive apartheid. Ultimately, the film is a moving tribute to the individuals who tell their stories and those they remember. Combining formal innovation with empathy and shattering political analysis, Kaganof succeeds in creating a cathartic elegiac lament for the tragedy of apartheid through telling the story of South Africa’s first opera company, Eoan
