Dir: Rumbi Katedza
Year: 2011
Dur: 42 min
Zimbabwe
Shona with English subtitles

The Axe and the Tree takes its title from the Shona saying, ‘The Axe will forget, but the tree will always remember.’ This moving film tells the gripping stories of four survivors in the aftermath of the atrocities and violence that marred Zimbabwe’s presidential election in 2008. It reveals the work of the Tree of Life organisation, an NGO working with survivors of violence as they try to rebuild their lives, relationships and communities and find a way to forgive what they cannot forget.
Filmmaker in attendance

This groundbreaking documentary was filmed over four years in Africa’s tallest residential building, Ponte Towers, where things have changed since the building was erected exclusively for white residents in 1976. At the time of filming, Ponte had become home to over 4000 people from all corners of Africa. The giant cylindrical, glass landmark hovers over Johannesburg’s inner city and looms synonymous with post-apartheid fear and labelling of migrants and refugees. Much of the filming takes place in the lift, giving viewers an insider look at the lives and daily struggles of ordinary people living in the building who have come to South Africa in search of a better life. What transpires is a challenge to prevailing prejudices about the place being a den of undeserving, criminal elements. Instead, it puts human face to refugees and migrants, and it conveys a universal and timely message about understanding and respect.

In parallel narratives, Simon Bright tells the stories of Rhodesia’s transition to Zimbabwe and the personal journey of Robert Mugabe, using one to explain the other, finally suggesting why Mugabe chose the road he has. Driven by extraordinary archive footage, as a cinematic biography it has everything – first-hand accounts of Mugabe’s early life with a desperately poor Catholic mother, what he was like at school, the effects of a Jesuit education and his rage against his absent father. As his star ascends, commentators reflect on early landmarks, particularly his attendance of Ghana’s independence celebrations in 1957. It’s clear the highly intellectual young turk was admired and respected through the 1960s and 70s. Bright traces the origins of this esteem through fascinating archival film interviews. The parallel story of the transition is equally well researched, as are later episodes of importance, notably Lancaster House, the Matabeleland genocide and the growing role of global business in Africa’s economies. But it’s the behind-the-scenes jostling for power which Bright exposes that is the most riveting, and from it Mugabe who emerges as unquestionably one of post-colonial history’s most canny and devious leaders.
Filmmaker in attendance

Shot entirely undercover over the course of nine months, Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children is a beautiful and moving documentary which tells the stories of three children growing up in today’s Zimbabwe.12-year- old Grace rummages through rubbish dumps in Harare to find bones to sell for school fees. Nine-year-old Esther has to care for her baby sister and her mother who is dying of HIV/AIDS. 13-year-old Obert pans for gold to make enough money to buy food for himself and his grandmother, while dreaming of somehow getting the education he craves. From BAFTA-winning director and producer Jezza Neumann and Xoliswa Sithole, a powerful tale unfolds of the gaping chasm between what these children hope for and what their country can currently provide them with.
Filmmaker in attendance

Dir: Simon Wood
Year: 2011
Dur: 51 min
South Africa
English, Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana with English subtitle

“Forerunners” is a beautifully photographed, expertly paced film. A cousin in jail, three households to support, problems with the ancestors, stressful sales targets, new babies – the lot of the new black middle class is not all BMW M5s and patent leather sling-backs. Wood’s film sets out to find the reality behind the black diamond myth, the individuals behind the lifestyle, by following four upwardly mobile young go-getters as they make their way through a ruthless, demanding, often critical world. Mpumi is trying to open a rural care centre while dealing with ‘country time’. Miranda is raising a child alone as well as holding down an executive job. Martin is trying to find the missing element in his life. Karabo’s father has died and he must return to Soweto as the paterfamilias. Each is an illuminating journey, just as Wood’s film shines a welcome spotlight on the world of South Africa’s recently rewarded. Success is by no means guaranteed, and if it comes, at what price? A layered, intelligent, deeply moving film deserving of a wide audience.
Filmmaker in attendance

British-born filmmaker Khalid Shamis is a child of exiled parents, a Libyan father and South African mother, searching for the roots of his identity. He travels to Cape Town, carrying with him the haunting im- age of an influential figure in his life, his maternal grandfather Imam Abdullah Haron, a famous Muslim community leader and anti-apart- heid icon, who was detained and died in the custody of apartheid se- curity police in 1969. Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, Shamis tries to uncover within the memories of family, friends, members of the Imam’s community and even his jailers, a more complex and more honest portrait of this enigmatic, larger-than-life character. Weav- ing together interviews, archive footage, animation and live action, this carefully crafted film reveals the quiet triumphs and tragic truths behind the mythology of the struggle hero’s journey.
Filmmaker in attendance

Awards

• Best Film (Audience Award) Encounters International Documentary Film Festival, South Africa 2011

Dir: Karen Waltorp, Christian Vium
Year: 2010
Dur: 58 min
Denmark
Afrikaans and English with English subtitles

Manenberg is a candid film about the lives of two kids living in this infamous Cape Town township. Warren’s 21st birthday is coming up and he must make a decision. Should he keep dodging the police or hand himself over? His neighbour Fazline lives with her aging grandmother and little sister and writes letters to her mother who is in prison again. Danish filmmakers and anthropologists, Karen Waltrop and Christian Vium, spent months with the film’s characters, revealing the various ways in which both have inherited the daily uncertainties of life on the Cape Flats and navigate this urban terrain of violence, marginalisation and poverty. The result is an intimate film about coming of age amidst difficult surroundings, families, and life’s conflicts. It is a film about everyday life and dreams of the future.

Dir: Tim Wege
Year: 2011
Dur: 80 min
South African
English and Afrikaans with English subtitles

Set in the Transkei against a backdrop of rural village life, Tim Wege’s film plays out as King Naki, owner of Thul’uzobona, the fastest horse in the neighborhood, fights to take his dream of success to the next level and win the annual amateur champion- ships. King has already beaten the odds by rising from stable hand to horse owner and he’s won almost everything else on the wild, fenceless tracks of the high Eastern Cape. But standing in his way is Disprin and a team of horses from Kokstad, owned by a wealthy businessman. As the race gets closer, Wege tracks King Naki’s incredible journey, his love of his horses and his remarkable way with them, as well as the eternal battle between the haves and have-nots. Naki is a remarkable character, resolute, determined, honourable, with a sharp sense of where he comes from and what is important. Wege’s combination of on-site interview and non- invasive camerawork reveals a world seldom seen. The magical score provides an equally important backdrop to the project.
Filmmaker in attendance

Dir: Staffan Julén and Marius van Niekerk
Year: 2010
Dur: 93 min
Sweden/Germany

Four war veterans, from different sides, step onto a boat at the mouth of the Kwando River, deep within the African interior. They are on a journey back to past battlefields, the sites where they as youngsters, tried to kill each other during apartheid South Africa’s interventions in Namibia and Angola (1975-1992). But now, twenty years later, they’ve come together as former enemy combatants, a new unit of disparate souls joined together not only by their common war trauma, but also by their need to understand, to reconcile, to forgive. Shot against a spectacular backdrop of African savannah, My Heart of Darkness is a film about unthinkable suffering, grotesque brutality, meaningless violence, disappointment, but also and most of all of hope. And how a common denominator steers the lives of four very different people on a path that will change them forever.
Filmmaker in attendance

Dir: Jane Murago Munene
Year: 2011
Dur: 71 min
Kenya
English subtitles

Monica Wangu Wamwere, Unbroken Spirit recounts the inde- fatigable efforts of Mama Koigi, mother of human rights activist and politician Koigi wa Wamwere. When her son was detained as a political prisoner in Kenya, Mrs. Wamwere galvanized a series of protests to release political prisoners. She participated in the 1992 Mothers’ Hunger Strike, and was the last remaining mother on strike, even after her own sons were released, living up to her pledge that she will not leave until all are set free. As Kenya has seen more political stability since the end of the Moi regime, the courage and efforts of these women have gone overlooked. This film celebrates a stalwart for justice and freedom and is a vital re- minder of the agency that a group of rural women have and their power to affect change in a turbulent time.
Filmmaker in attendance

Dir: Sieh Mchawala
Year: 2010
Dur: 57 min
Australia
English subtitles

Barefoot turns the development narrative around and zooms in on a pair of Australian twins as they attempt to do good in rural Ethiopia. Shot over four years, Barefoot follows the siblings on their annual Christmas pilgrimage where they pioneer their own brand of DIY development work after fundraising through the year. Marshalling their modest resources and know-how to get a clinic off the ground and solve some of the villagers’ pressing problems, they learn first hand that good intentions will only get you so far. Barefoot captures the fundamental dilemmas of aid work in an intimate microcosm.
Filmmaker in attendance

Dir: Manu Gerosa and Salva Muñoz
Year: 2010
Dur: 59 min
Italy/ Spain
French, Italian and Kirundi with English subtitles

Fear is the only reliable ruler in Burundi, a tiny country in the heart of Africa that has been at war with itself for more than fifteen years. In the poor township of Kamenge, just north of the capital Bujumbura, no one reacts any longer to the sound of gunshot in the streets. Yet amongst the despair, a group of people are determined to make a difference: journalist-cum- politician Alexis Sinduhije, who has chosen Burundi over a safer life in France; the members of the Kamenge Youth Centre, who commit to non-violence; and the inhabitants that have rebuilt their Kamenge neighbourhood eight times, are just a few of them.

Awards

• Silver Audience Award, 15th Amnesty International Film Festival Vancouver 2010

Dir: Divita Wa Lusala, Dieudo Hamadi, Kiripi Katembo Siku
Year: 2010
Dur: 69 min
DRC/South Africa
English and French with English subtitles

A quartet of powerful short films that examines social issues in an impoverished African nation, Congo in Four Acts is an eye- opening exposé that lays bare the reality of everyday life in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Initiated as an educational project to help young filmmakers develop their craft, the end result is an unpolished vérité gem, with an engaging consistency linking the films together. Ladies in Waiting channels Frederick Wiseman as it chronicles the bureaucratic dysfunctions of a Kinshasa maternity ward. Symphony takes us on a staggering tour of the Kinshasa slums. Zero Tolerance is a searing snapshot of sexual violence in eastern DRC. Mine is a heart-rending examination of a polluted settlement where young children earn meager wages by breaking rocks. Congo in Four Acts is a fine example of the socio-political advocacy art that can result from putting documentary tools into the hands of local citizens.
Filmmaker in attendance

Dir: Rossella Schillaci
Year: 2011
Dur: 75 min
Italy
English subtitles

In Turin, in northern Italy, an abandoned clinic is taken over by 200 legally documented refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. They have been squatting there since December 2008 until once again displaced by the Italian authorities. Set between a cinema and a street market in a working-class neighborhood in industrial Turin, this 5-story former clinic is now inhabited by a group of refugees who form an African sanctuary isolated from the rest of the world. There is only occasional running water, electricity but no heating. Khaled, Shukri and Ali, as all the other migrants, have been travelling through the hell in order to arrive in Italy. The film follows their struggles as they seek work, social integration and political protest, stuck in Italy, which holds a faint promise when compared to the peril of the journey to reach its shores.

Dir: Moussa Sene Absa
Year: 2010
Dur: 75 min
Senegal
English and French with English subtitles

This poetic documentary is a call for respect. The day after sopi (change), it is said that God applauded with thousands of hands, and the Senegalese people were proud. He said, “Here are two pots : one full of salt, the other of sugar...” The people began eating the sugar first and ultimately were left only with salt. Brigands, thieves, assassins and mercenaries sang a new anthem for the Nation. The Sacrifice tells the story of how 11 Senegalese men set off to Spain in search of better earnings. They never reached their destination. A boat was found drifting off the coast of Barbados containing their bodies and a letter written when they realised their fate. Senegalese director, Silver Bear-winning Moussa Sene Absa illustrates the interplay between the global economy, national politics and the dreams of individuals, through beautiful scenes of his home country and provocative interviews with her men and women.
Filmmaker in attendance