Toorbos
An engrossing, coming-of-age story, Toorbos centres around 18-year-old Karoliena, who lives in the impoverished white community in the Knysna forest. Forced into marrying Johannes, a shopkeeper, Karoliena struggles to adjust to her new life in town. The film portrays a courageous woman in a conservative Afrikaans society in the 1930’s, who finds her voice and […]
Influence
Influence is a revealing, David vs. Goliath inside track to the immoral, dangerous and weaponised influence that PR firm Bell Pottinger had in South Africa and the world. With the nefarious Lord Tim Bell as a key interviewee, the film tracks in chilling detail his callous manipulations of geo-politics for financial gain, showing how these facilitated […]
The Letter Reader
This gentle, short film features appealing acting by Siyabonga, a twelve-year-old boy sent to his grandmother’s village while his parents sort out their marriage. Siyabonga becomes the village letter reader, connecting people with their loved ones around the country. He discovers the power of words, and cannot bring himself to cause pain to a beautiful […]
Riding with Sugar
This zany, action-packed film features accomplished acting, inventive cinematography, and a plot twist guaranteed to surprise. Joshua’s dream of making it big in off-road cycle racing crashes when he has an accident. He’s taken in by Mambo, who runs an orphanage in Cape Town. Mambo, Joshua, and the troop of high-spirited boys are all African […]
Mother to Mother
The murder in a Cape Town township of 26-year-old Amy Biehl, an American human rights activist and Fulbright scholar, rocked South Africa in 1993. Mother to Mother is a sensitively made, short documentary based on the gut-wrenching novel by Dr. Sindiwe Magona, writing in the voice of the mother of one of Amy’s murderers to […]
Life is Wonderful
When Denis Goldberg, then 33, was sentenced in 1964 to life imprisonment along with Nelson Mandela and others for seeking to forcibly overthrow South Africa’s apartheid government, he shouted “Life is Wonderful.” Goldberg, the only White convicted in the historic Rivonia trial, retained his optimistic outlook. Interviewed towards the end of his life, he expressed […]
Tess
Raw, confronting emotionally charged – these are the words that spring to mind in relation to Tess. What may not be immediately apparent is that this story of a physically, emotionally and psychologically damaged sex worker is also ultimately about self-affirmation and empowerment. The central character, Tess, will live with you long after the final […]
Sides of a Horn
This timely short film embraces a hybrid of dramatic and documentary styles to look at rhino poaching through two fictional antagonists, a ranger and a poacher, juxtaposing their points of view of a poaching incident that puts them both at risk. The choice to not show graphic footage of carnage gives Sides of a Horn […]
SanDance!
Writer and producer Richard Wicksteed has spent decades filming the San, Africa’s oldest tribe numbering around 130,000 people scattered across southern Africa. SanDance follows dancers from rehearsals in remote Kalahari villages to uplifting performances at Botswana’s annual Kuru Dance Festival. Dance, particularly healing dance, is central to the San culture. It’s a way of connecting […]
A New Country
A New Country takes a sobering look at recent history, from the early days of liberation to an increasingly fractured contemporary society still battling the legacies of apartheid, colonialism, and continuing racial and economic inequality, 26 years after apartheid ended. Director Sifiso Khanyile assembles an impressive chorus of activists, leaders, educationalists, and artists who comment […]
