TASTES OF Africa
WITH SANTI, HER AUNTIES & FRIENDS
"Food is like a language. And like language, it evolves, but it also roots us. It reminds us where we come from, even as we find new ways to belong."
SANTILLA CHINGAIPE
Series Synopsis
When Santilla Chingaipe sets out to host the ultimate African dinner party for her friends, she realises she's not just missing recipes, she's missing the stories behind them. 'Tastes of Africa' is a 3 x 15-min documentary series that follows her vibrant, cross-cultural journey through Melbourne's African food scene, where every bite is served with a story.
Guided by the wisdom of aunties who've carried recipes across oceans, and joined by younger African-Australian friends and chefs who are adapting traditions in bold and unexpected ways, Santilla dives into home kitchens and hidden eateries. Together, they explore the flavours of the continent; from Ghana's waakye to umxhanxa from Zimbabwe.
But this isn't just about food, it's about what food carries; the journeys of migration, the joy of survival, and memories - lots and lots of memories!
Through shared meals, intimate conversations, and plenty of laughter, Santilla uncovers how African food in Australia is not only thriving, but evolving; shaping new identities, new communities, and new ways of belonging. In the finale, Santilla returns to her own kitchen to host a celebratory feast featuring some of the dishes and memories gathered along the way.
'Tastes of Africa' is a soulful, flavour-filled adventure; a love letter to the aunties, friends, and the delicious foods that have shaped and continue to shape who we are.
BLACKSAND PICTURES
About Santi
Santilla Chingaipe is a Zambian-born filmmaker, historian and author, whose work explores settler colonialism, slavery, and contemporary migration in Australia. Her first book of non-fiction Black Convicts was published in 2024, and the critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary inspired by the book, Our African Roots, is streaming on SBS OnDemand.
The recipient of several awards, Chingaipe was recognised at the United Nations as one of the most influential people of African descent in the world in 2019. She delivered the annual E.W Cole lecture in 2023 on 'Who Gets to Write History?', and her work has been published internationally by The New York Times, The Guardian, The BBC, and elsewhere.
Chingaipe is a regular contributor to The Saturday Paper and is the founder of Behind The Screens, an annual program supported by VicScreen, aimed at increasing the representation of people historically excluded from the Australian film industry. She is based in Melbourne.
Episode One
In a Melbourne kitchen filled with the smell of frying bananas, Aunty Summayyah is making dodo; but she's really teaching us how to eat, and why. For her, food is never just sustenance; it's nourishment, memory, and quiet defiance. Holding onto our culture, she tells us, is its own form of resistance.
The dodo comes with a full spread, and an appetite for it carries us across town to Akwaaba Restaurant in St Kilda, where Chef Ahmed is holding his own; his Ghanaian jollof squaring off against Aunty Summayyah's Nigerian version in a rivalry as old as it is affectionate. Neither side is backing down.
Between the laughter and the last bites, we sit with Sherry-Rose, Santilla's friend from Cameroon, who traces her own story back through her childhood; food as the thread that taught her who she is, and the royal lineage she carries with her still.
Episode Two
The episode begins at The Abyssinian, an East African restaurant serving Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine, where Santi sits down with Chef Jonathan to learn what separates the two; not just on the plate, but in history. Jonathan traces Eritrea's story through Italian colonisation and the fingerprints it left on the food, before turning to his own; a journey through several countries as war broke out, before landing in Melbourne to take over the restaurant from his sister.
From there, Santi heads to Aunty Fartun's home, where she's taught to make sambusa and introduced, for the first time, to the Somali way of eating rice with banana (or, as it turns out, banana with almost everything). A full spread follows; Somali rice, sambusa, xalwo, and Somali tea, each dish carrying its own memory.
By the end, Santi arrives at the episode's quiet truth; "food is always more honest than politics".
Episode Three
With Aunty Shillar, Santilla learns recipes built on ingredients older than most realise; sorghum, older than maize, worked into a sorghum sadza with vegetables and peanut, alongside a dessert of maize and butternut pumpkin. There are no measurements here, only years of watching and helping until the knowledge became her own. Aunty Shillar leaves her with a Zimbabwean saying: a visitor's stomach is tiny - no matter how much you have, you share it, because generosity is part of who we are.
From there, Santilla meets her friend Tyrone at Manzé, a Mauritian restaurant, where he recalls braais and childhood meals from South Africa while Chef Nagesh unpacks a Mauritian cuisine shaped by colonisation and waves of migration. Between the two stops, one truth lands clearly; there is no singular type of African cuisine.
The episode ends back home, where Santilla's friend Laurinda helps her prep for the feast. Friends gather, the table fills, and the season arrives at the moment it's been building toward all along.
Creator/Producer: Kauthar Abdulalim
'Tastes of Africa' represents the kind of work we strive for at Blacksand Pictures; intelligent, grounded, and rooted in cultural authenticity, while still pushing us to experiment and grow as filmmakers.
We're excited by the opportunity to elevate everyday stories into something cinematic and meaningful. It's rare to see our stories told with this kind of love, care, intimacy, and joy.
I'm proud to bring something fresh, fun and supremely tasty into the world.
Writer/Director: Rendah Haj
This is my second project with Blacksand Pictures, and it's a truly meaningful collaboration. As an African-Australian and Muslim woman filmmaker, it's powerful to be supported in telling stories that centre our communities in ways that feel intimate, creative, and authentic.
'Tastes of Africa' will be an archive that honours the complexity and beauty of African communities, and the rich, visual language of food; where recipes are vibrant, full of stories, and layered with meaning.
A series like this doesn't currently exist in Australia, and it's long overdue.
Contact:
Kauthar Abdulalim
Tastes of Africa is a Blacksand Pictures production. Principal production funding is from Screen Australia, in association with VicScreen.
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