"Documentary, Memories, Imaginary, Apartheid, Soweto, Cape Town"
A listening journey into South Africa's stories and memories of the past, challenges of the present and dream of the future.
Social & External
The people behind it
Tells the stories of four students who are turning their lives around at the Ithuteng Trust School.
The story of Nisar Ahmed Khan, told through his children and the people he served, a spiritual guide whose followers still visit his tomb on his birth and death anniversaries. And alongside how his family spends a few days at the village keeping his traditions alive.
A beautiful collection of pictures ties Frank Cancian, an elderly photographer and retired professor of anthropology, American with origin from Veneto, to the people of Lacedonia, a small town in southern Italy. Thanks to the rediscovery of the photos taken in 1957 by the young Cancian in that rural village where he had arrived almost by chance, the story resumes there where it was interrupted 60 years earlier. And the thread of memories ties back to people and places, bringing with itself some essential reflections on how photography can become an ethnographic look at small communities.
A poetic exploration of the multi-generational affects of Canada's Indian Residential School system, based on the personal trials of Aboriginal playwright Yvette Nolan.
In the wake of one of the worst social experiments in the history of mankind, 'I'm not Black, I'm Coloured' is one of the first documentary films to look at the legacy of Apartheid from the viewpoint of the Cape Coloured. A people who in 1994, embraced the concept of Desmond Tutu's all encompassing 'rainbow nation', but soon thereafter realized that freedom, privilege, economic growth and equality would not include them. A people who for more than 350 years has been disregarded, ignored, belittled, and stripped of anything they can call their own enduring a complex psychological oppression and identity crisis unparalleled in South African history.
A concert movie dedicated to the formation of the World Club of Odesa under the leadership of Mikhail Zhvanetsky. "Let many people be proud of the expanses and fields," says Mikhail Zhvanetsky himself about his favorite city, "someone falls to his favorite birch tree, thinking that it grows only here. We have the only homeland - Odesa, the only party of Odessites. Odesa is halfway around the world, from America to Australia. Odesa is a phenomenon, an Odessite is a character. Odesa was, is and will be one of the most famous cities on this temporal globe. And we, who stayed, and you, who left, will live and live with it.... Odesa is worth dedicating your youth and old age to it, and it will repay you like a native land".
A single female voice sings of waiting in her garden for her ‘dark-eyed sailor’ to return from war, bearing the other half of their token, a gimmel ring. Three veterans pass on the road as she waits, and she asks them: “When you were fighting in distant lands, did you think of the home you left?” In reply the veterans relate their recollections. The garden images in the accompanying film represent ‘home’, but also stand for a more general possibility of redemption, of the potential of the past to return at any time, disguised and changed, to renew the present: “Each moment of time is a garden gate,” the song goes, “Through it my love may walk.”
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
In southern Africa’s Mashatu, one of the last bastions for free-roaming leopards, a mother leopard has just given birth. And she’ll do anything to protect her two cubs. But on this land, which is drying up by the day, the struggle for survival is fierce. A leopard war is about to break out. In this 40,000-hectare enclave plagued by climate change, resources are becoming increasingly scarce for wildlife. The leopards living there are forced to adapt, developing new behaviors that will lead to terrible interspecies clashes. Will the mother leopard be able to protect her offspring from the many dangers? Can the cubs master the art of survival? A gripping animal tale that follows the destiny of a family of felines for 3 years, in the wilds of Botswana. Thanks to cutting-edge technology (drones, high-sensitivity cameras), this film captures rare images of a fascinating species, revealing behaviors never before observed.
A provocative look from within at Afrikaner extremists who, in 1991, clung to the belief that they were the chosen ‘super race’ of Africa. With the demise of white rule, many of these Boers lived in fear. Some had banded into paramilitary groups, such as Eugene Terre’Blanche’s Afrikaner Resistance Movement, which claimed wide support within the South African army and police. They were preparing for an armed showdown with the new government.
Filmmaker Froukje van Wengerden’s 86-year-old grandmother shares a powerful memory from 1944, when she was just 14. As her story unfolds, we see a group of contemporary 14-year-old girls. Their procession of portraits permits the spectator to see simultaneously forward and back, into the future and towards the past. A miraculous testimonial that uses eye contact to focus the viewer inward and evoke unexpected emotions.
With Nelson Mandela freed from prison, South Africa is changing fast - but big challenges lie ahead. In the township of Soweto children have taken charge of their schools, trading formal (albeit poorly-funded) education for incitement of rebellion against the injustices between the black and the white populations.
The bleached palette and home-movie aesthetics of Super 8 footage provide the image track for this testimonial about an illegal abortion in Mexico City in the 1960s, delivered in voiceover by the filmmaker’s mother. In its account of this intimate and disorienting memory, Lesser Choices summons a time of profound uncertainty—a moment from an era without rights—and offers a warning to the present.
Air Jaws claims new turf in South Africa. Dr. Neil Hammershlag and Enrico Gennari follow with brand new technology: a "drone-towed" seal decoy to study and capture the harrowing and dramatic battles between shark and seal.
An intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon. This unflinching look at Anthony Bourdain reverberates with his presence, in his own voice and in the way he indelibly impacted the world around him.
Nova and National Geographic present exclusive access to an astounding discovery of ancient fossil human ancestors.
In Freedom Park, a squatter settlement near the platinum mines in SA, a network of former sex workers create Tapologo. They learn to be Home Based Carers for their community, transforming degradation into solidarity and squalor into hope. Catholic Bishop Kevin Dowling participates in Tapologo and raises doubts on the official doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding AIDS and sexuality in the African context.
Oral history project exploring the history of London's holiday campers. From the 1930s to the 1980s London’s workers increasingly visited holiday camps such as Pontins and Butlins, or run by trade unions and other social groups. It became a tradition for generations of families - a highlight of the year for all ages.
The war memorials of 1914-1918 have become so familiar that we no longer see them. They've become an invisible museum, blending into the landscape of France. Then, one fine day, a sculpture catches our eye. Another History appears, perhaps the most gigantic artistic project since the cathedrals...
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.
In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. This documentary revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.
After another 7 year wait, director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born children from Seven Up! and 7 Plus Seven. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.
Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.
The definitive 3½-hour documentary about the troubled creation and enduring legacy of the science fiction classic 'Blade Runner', culled from 80 interviews and hours of never-before-seen outtakes and lost footage.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.
Through archival interviews and footage, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley relive the arc of their Wham! career, from 70s best buds to 80s pop icons.
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
Here's a little story they're about to tell... Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz share the story of their band and 40 years of friendship in a live documentary experience directed by friend, collaborator, and their former grandfather, Spike Jonze.