Rehad Desai, director of the Emmy Award-winning Miners Shot Down, releases his follow-up film, The Giant is Falling, on Friday night.
The film is co-directed by first-time director, Jabulani Mzozo.
Desai decided to have the premiere of the film at the first edition of the Johannesburg Film Festival, which also opens on Friday night.
“It feels so right that we are opening the film in South Africa,” Desai says. “This is a film about our present reality. The film raises questions about whether the big events we’ve seen in the past few years, including the brutality we saw at Marikana and the high octane battles over tertiary education, are an inevitable outcome of the inequality we inherited.
“Given the nature of this film, we do not expect to get a local broadcast any time soon, so catch it while you can.”
The European premiere will take place at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam next month.
Shot over two years, and supported by a number of international broadcasters, The Giant is Falling provides an inside look at the big political events of recent years that seemingly signify the dying days of the ANC.
Locating the moment when things fell apart at the Marikana massacre, the film charts the various ways in which people have collectively responded to the ANC’s failure to deliver on its promises.
From the end of its special relationship with the trade unions to the #FeesMustFall student movement and the more recent crushing electoral losses at the polls, the thread is the inequality that is making the current status quo untenable.
The inaugural Joburg Film Festival comes to multiple venues across the city from Friday night, October 28, to November 5 with a powerful line-up that includes six world and 26 Africa premieres.
Included in the programme, are:
* Black Girl (Wednesday at 6pm): This magnificent African classic from the continent’s greatest director, the late Senegalese film-maker, Ousmane Sembane, explores the complex dynamics of the immediate post-colonial period through the simple, devastating story of a servant, Diouana, brought to Antibes by a French couple previously stationed in Dakar.
* The Pearl of Africa (Tuesday at 8pm): The story of Cleopatra Kambugu, a 28-year-old Ugandan transgender girl who transitions into the woman she knows she was born to be.
The tale of an intimate fight for love in one of the most transphobic places in the world, the film reveals the fight for the right to love.
* Kemtiyu, Cheikh Anta (Thursday at 6pm): The Universal Man, The Giant of Knowledge, The Last Pharaoh were the headlines on the day after his death - February 7, 1986.
Thirty years later, this film paints a portrait of Cheikh Anta Diop, a trail-blazing scholar with an insatiable thirst for science and knowledge.
An honest, enlightened political figure, venerated by some, decried by others, and unknown to most, he was a man who fought his whole life for justice to restore historical awareness and dignity to the continent that we call Africa.
* Hissein Habre, A Chadian Tragedy (Friday next week at 6.30pm): This documentary looks at how the Chad president from 1982 to 1990 is finally to be judged for his crimes, with victims seeking truth at last.
* The Unseen (next Saturday at 2pm): Unfolding more like a conversation than a narrative, The Unseen follows the story of three wandering souls as they navigate the emotional and physical realities of post-colonial Namibia. First there is Marcus, an African-American actor tasked with portraying one of Namibia’s historical leaders.
Seeking authenticity in his craft, he embarks on an earnest research mission to unveil the true history of his character.
Then there is Anu, a talented local musician who is having trouble negotiating between his influences and identity. Last, there is Sara, a depressed young woman uncertain of whether or not her environment provides anything worth living for.
* We Have Never Been Kids (next Saturday at 6.15pm). A mother is trying to look after her children, especially in the lead-up to and aftermath of her divorce. The film opens a thorny file in the Middle East as it looks at the lives of women, politics and why so many young men in that region are trying to find a way to join Islamic State. - Staff Reporter
Films will be screened at The Zone in Rosebank, Cinema Nouveau at The Mall of Rosebank, Maponya Mall, the Newtown Junction, Cine Centre in Killarney Mall, The Bioscope in Maboneng the Kings Cinema in Alexandra, the Majestic Theatre in Fordsburg, community centres in Dobsonville, Diepsloot, Orange Farm and Riverley, Constitution Hill and the Alexandra Theatre in Braamfontein. For more information, visit www.jozifilmfestival.co.za.
Independent Media