Affectionately Known as Alex
Danny Turken
South Africa2008
Danny Turken had started working on her film about the enormous tensions between South Africans and Zimbabwean refugees as soon as March 2008. In the streets and during the demonstrations in Alexandra the mood was already very aggressive. In the finished film the shocking images of the pogroms she filmed later on during the nights of the following May take on the character of an almost inevitable escalation.
Production: Luna Films, Johannesburg
Camera: Danny Turken
Format: DigiBeta PAL (filmed on MiniDV), Color
Running Time: 24 min.
Languages: English, Zulu, Xhosa
Angels on our Shoulders
Andy Spitz
South Africa 2008
At the Rand Airport Displacement Camp in Johannesburg a group of teachers, refugees themselves, establishes a school for the children in a disused bus, the “Good Hope School”. It becomes an island of normality amidst the chaos of need and traumatized people fearing for their lives. Benita, a student from the Congo was forced to look on as her best friend was murdered. A lack of education has led to these riots, says one of the teachers and that is why this school is needed in spite of all adversities.
Production: Left Eye Productions, Johannesburg
Camera: Andy Spitz
Format: DigiBeta PAL (filmed on MiniDV), Color
Running Time: 24 min.
Languages: English, Zulu
Baraka / The Blessing
Omelga Mthiyane, Riaan Hendricks, Marianne Gysae
South Africa 2008
Baraka is the name of a Somali-run grocery store in a humble settlement near Cape Town. The enterprising young shopkeepers have enjoyed a fair deal of economic success and have become the envy of some of their South African neighbors. Some of those neighbors envy the shopkeeper so much that they are being repeatedly chased, beaten and robbed. Sometimes xenophobia has hands-on economic origins as well.
Production: Day Zero Film + Video, Capetown
Format: DigiBeta PAL (filmed on MiniDV), Color
Running Time: 24 min.
Languages: English, Xhosa, Oromo
The Burning Man
Adze Ugah
South Africa 2008
The image of the man who was burned to death by an angry mob on May 17 became a media icon of the riots and made the front pages of all daily newspapers. He was Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, a rather shy construction worker from Mozambique. One of the many thousands of African migrant workers who come to South Africa each year. Adze Ugah, the Nigerian director of this film is one of them as well. He retraces the steps of the prominent victim which lead him back to Ernesto’s family in Mozambique.
Production: The Bomb Shelter, Johannesburg
Format: DigiBeta PAL (filmed on MiniDV), Color
Running Time: 24 min.
Languages: English, Shitshwa
