District Six - Rising from the Dust, a documentary film about the painful story of forced removals and restitution, has received global recognition after film-maker Weaam Williams won an award of excellence from the Scandinavian International Film Festival this week.
The film will make its European premiere at the festival in Helsinki, Finland, in October. “I didn’t expect it and to get it from Scandinavia, I was just like, wow, I don’t believe this,” said Williams.
After visiting the Marché du Film market at Cannes with the National Film and Video Foundation this year and learning about the European market, Williams decided to make her film more personal and address bigger issues.
District Six is remembered as a cosmopolitan neighbourhood before it was declared a whites-only area in 1966.
Williams said while the film still told the story of the land, it also highlights the complexities of her personal story returning to the land.
“The space is not ideal. I share the emotional journey of living in a conflicted space, with child abductions happening close by, drugs being sold. I came from a place better than this and everyone feels like we’ve just been placed here.
“We can get more resources because we are close to the city but we don’t. It’s the complexities of living here, the opportunity and the threats.”
Weaam Williams says while the film told the story of the land, it also highlights the complexities of her personal story returning to the land. Video: Nicola Daniels
She also took the story further by juxtaposing the dispossession in District Six and the dispossession in Gaza.
“I made an even braver film. I am pro-Palestine and there is footage inside a Palestinian march with thousands of people in Cape Town. The juxtapositions in the film play around with the notion of dispossession in both places, as well as who owns and controls wealth property in South Africa and Israel.”
Williams’s grandfather owned a block of houses and a tailor shop in District Six. After he returned from Mecca his shop was burnt down and out of the five houses he owned, he only got back one.
As an independent film-maker, Williams is trying to raise funds to attend the festival. The new version of District Six Rising from the Dust will be screened at the Killarney Mall in Joburg on Friday at 8pm.