“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Here We are Waiting for You
Highgate Hotel Massacre
My Neighbour My Killer
Of Journey, Home and Treasure
Rewind
Sea Point Days
Here We are Waiting for You Brazil, 1998, 73min
Director: Marcelo Masagâo
This feature length documentary challenges expectations by presenting historical turning points that have shaped the 20 century through the use of images, sound and text.
Tying the grand narrative together are the delicate personal stories of invented “small” characters whose fate were shaped by history’s machinations. Evocative, emotive and highly engaging, this non-linear timeline of images express, without narration, the discourse of a century marked by humanity’s desires, revolutionary inventions and shifting ideologies. Courtesy of the Director
Highgate Hotel Massacre World Premiere South Africa, 2009, 24min
Director: Mark Kaplan
(Screens with Rewind)
For 14 years the survivors of the Highgate Hotel Massacre believed they were attacked by APLA; the military wing of the Pan African Congress. The devastating attack on a “white” bar in the Eastern Cape during the turbulent transition period of the early nineties became one of the worst examples of politically motivated violence during this time.
My Neighbour My Killer USA/France, 2009, 80min, English Subtitles
Director: Anne Aghion www.anneaghionfilms.com
In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutus were incited to wipe out the country’s Tutsi minority. In 1999 the government began the Gacaca; open-air hearings with citizen-judges meant to try their neighbours and rebuild the nation. As part of this experiment in reconciliation, confessed genocide killers are sent home from prison, while traumatized survivors are asked to forgive them and resume living side-by-side.
Filming for close to a decade in a tiny village, award-winning filmmaker Anne Aghion has charted the impact of the Gacaca on survivors and perpetrators alike. Through their fear and anger, accusations and defences, blurry truths, inconsolable sadness, and hope for life renewed, she captures the emotional journey to coexistence. Courtesy of the Director
Award
Nestor Almendros Prize 2009- Courage in filmmaking prize
Of Journey Home and Treasure South Africa, 2008, 72min
Director: Feizel Mamdoo
South African filmmakers, Feizel Mamdoo and Dumisani Dlamini, journey to the “Festival of the Dhow Countries” in Zanzibar to seek from this kaleidoscope of cultures a vision for the relations between African and Indian in South Africa.
In Stone Town Feizel is jolted into connection with his birthplace and grows to appreciate that the treasure of an integrated identity is not in some distant future, but back from where he comes. Feizel discovers his issues of journey, homecoming and identity to resonate profoundly with the outlook of the Sufi mystic Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, more especially after Dumisani is one day found dead. Courtesy of the Director
Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony South Africa, 2009, 50min
Director: Liza Key
(Screens with Highgate Hotel Massacre)
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was an extraordinary moment in our collective histories, where 21 000 victims told their stories and 7 000 perpetrators confessed their crimes. To mark its 10th anniversary, composer Philip Miller (Yizo Yizo, Heartlines, Kentridge’s 9 Drawings for Projection and Noyce’s Catch a Fire) created Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony. ‘Shards’ or fragments of recorded testimony – voices, exhalations, intonations, moans, murmurs, gasps all make up the fabric of the work
This documentary is an engrossing and, at times, harrowing story that uses this exceptional and unusual musical work as a vehicle to tell the human stories behind the shards. Between excerpts from the Market Theatre performance of the cantata (directed and designed by Gerhard Marx), interviews with victims, survivors and perpetrators, along with security police archive and moments from the TRC hearings, Miller tells the story of the cantata’s development and the testimonies that inspired him.
Sea Point Days South Africa, 2009, 94min, English Subtitles
Director: Francois Verster
The Sea Point Promenade - and the public swimming pools at its centre - forms a space unlike any other in Cape Town. Here, slightly away from the hustle and bustle of the business area, life is paraded most unapologetically in all its forms.
Even in the not-so-New South Africa, the type of proximity and interchange amongst very different people found on the Promenade and at the pool is unique. Personal and interpersonal identities are still far from clear in the country – and here they seem to be negotiated in unusual ways on a daily basis.
Using innovative film language, quirky charm and a combination of film formats, this essayistic and often visionary film captures not only the societal blend particular to this part of Cape Town - but also the conflicts and difficulties underlying it. Intimate and original vignettes alternate with powerful scenic shots, archive footage and observations of life, all leading towards a comprehensive and surprising view on what it means to be South African right now.
Courtesy of the Director
Awards
Doc NZ 2009- Best Editor
Doc NZ 2009- Finalist Best Cinematography Category
Here We are Waiting for You
My Neighbour My Killer
