District Six Rising from the Dust

Weaam Williams’ deeply personal portrayal explores an issue central to today’s South Africa – the challenge faced by a forcibly displaced people in reclaiming ancestral lands and rebuilding a community. More than 70,000 residents of District Six, a once vibrant, multicultural suburb of Cape Town, lost their homes and businesses to the apartheid government’s bulldozers. Today, much of the District is an urban wasteland, claimed by vested interests and original landowners. Williams, a descendant of an evicted family that lost substantial property, lived in District Six during the five-year filming of the documentary. Through personal commentary, interviews, archival footage, and traditional cultural events, she gives us a unique inside look into a community’s fragmentation and re-emergence.