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The 2009 Encounters Film Festival's coming up in Cape Town, from 2 July - 17 July at the V&A Waterfront Nu Metro cinemas.

Here's a listing of all the confirmed films and documentaries on the programme, with descriptions from the movie-makers and producers:


Daughter of Spirits Mother of Mine (screens with Soul Train)
South Africa 2008, 48min
Director: Henner Frankenfeld

To be chosen by the ancestors, to become a sangoma, is to receive a gift from the creator and refusal may provoke their anger. Illuminating is the idea that a nyanga might not want to heed the call to serve the ancestors and that the gift of sight can be a burden as well as a privilege, for the families too.

Photographer Sipho Futshane’s life was on track. He was about to crack the big-time as the bass player for the Kwaito firebrand Gurash. A car accident, which ended his musical career, forced his mother to confront her calling.

In the film it is revealed that both her grandmother and grandfather ignored theirs - and that it led to years of heartache and trouble. Seen through Sipho’s eyes, his investigations into the past and a photographic exhibition of his journey, this is an enthralling, compassionate, respectful and intimate account of the complexities of incorporating traditional spirituality into present day reality.

Please note: a panel discussion will be held in the cinema after the screening on Sunday, 19 July.


Dawn Matthews (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 50min
Director: Tim Greene


Part of the Who Do You Think You Are? series that premiered on SABC2 on 31 May, this documentary features soapie star Dawn Matthews. 

Director, Tim Greene delves into Dawn's past and excavates a past as difficult as her present is privileged.

Marriage to a Jewish husband provokes a curiosity to uncover her own history, which leads to a biological DNA inheritance test, a journey to the Origins Centre at Wits to discover her Khoi roots, and a trip back to the Eastern Cape on a quest to find the identity of her biological father and the revered ‘Malabar’ slaves family connection.

The journey becomes a very personal step back - to a simpler time when family rather than fame was centre stage, feathers were the gold of the day and women, rather than men, were the glue that bound.

Dawn Matthews will be guesting at the Festival and will attend the screening of the film on Saturday, 4 July.

This documentary will be on SABC2 in 2010, in Part Two of the Who Do You Think You Are? series.


Fokofpolisiekar “Forgive them for they know not what they do” (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 108min
Director: Bryan Little

In-your-face progressive punk rock band Fokofpolisiekar are the subject of Little’s spirited look at both the contemporary Afrikaans music industry and the shifting cultural sands of morphing white Afrikaans culture.

Told in interview and through original video of their first tour and album, the film focuses on how the Belville band came to be a voice for the dislocated youth straddling the before-and-after of 1994.

They were a frustrated generation disillusioned with the lies of the church and state but without a form of expression, and as such the film is a political and personal commentary about those times - not old enough to fully understand the effects of living under Apartheid, not young enough to be entirely ‘new’ South Africans.

Cultural confusion isn’t the only currency - the groundbreaking retro comic book, B-grade film, Chicago punk rock design of their marketing also features.

Little and Producer, Filipa Domingues, will attend the Première screening of their film on Friday, 3 & Thursday, 9 July.


For Which I am Prepared to Die (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 85min
Director: Lindy Wilson

Roger Bushell was the mastermind of numerous WWII Prisoner of War camp escapes. One such escapade was celebrated by the 1963 film The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough as Bushell.

Hermanus born Bushell’s story is told by his niece, Lindy Wilson, based on a file she found, put together by her grandfather.

Bushell, a dashing character with a ‘fat chuckle,’ left to train as a barrister in London, then joined the RAF as a fighter pilot. Trading ancient Blenhams for Spitfires only two months before going into combat, he was shot down over Dunkirk in 1940, taken prisoner and sent to Dulag Luft.

Wilson shows his various escapes through a mixture of letters home, recreation and interview, culminating in his heroic plan to liberate 70 men through a tunnel from his Baltic POW camp.

The details are astonishing - papers, clothes, routes were all meticulously planned. Wilson’s film is very personal, capturing Bushell’s sense of fun, family and wit.

At one point after his second capture he writes home apologising for the hiatus in letters, explaining ‘he had changed his address because he’d left the camp without asking’.

Wilson is a guest of the Festival and will attend the Première screening of her film on Sunday, 5 July.


Healing Power of Nature (World Premieres)
Deep Friends
South Africa 2009 25min
Director: Liz Fish

Shot on location at the Chimfunshi chimp and wildlife sanctuary in northern Zambia, on the Congo border, this is the tale of Sandy, a powerful, troubled chimpanzee and his care giver and friend, Dominique Chinyama.

Sandy’s distrust of other chimps, due to an incident with a crocodile, means he is housed seperately and the film documents his move to a bigger, sun-filled enclosure.

This film is as much Dominique’s story as Sandy’s, telling the tale of a dedicated animal lover who rose from poverty to become a pivotal player in the Chimfunshi story.

AND

River of Ashes
South Africa 2009 25min
Dir: Emma Bestall

Though a day-in-the-life of three people who exist by, with and from, the Ganges River, this film is really the story of the river of the past 1,000 years. And it is the reality of 1,000 years and 1,000,000 pilgrims a year that has virtually stilled the river.

Ashes, bodies, effluent, offerings, all kinds of debris litter the waters. Furthermore, the dreams of many holy seekers are clouded by deeply entrenched classism, particularly the ‘undertakers’ - the untouchables.

The film uses the river’s narrative to explore the intricacies and inherent ironies surrounding concepts of purity, impurity, the holy and mundane which are acted out daily on its banks.

Fish, Bestall and Producer Michael Raimondo will attend the Première screening of the films on Monday, 6 July.

The Healing Power of Nature is a documentary series that broadcast on SABC3. As yet there's no news as to when these episodes will be broadcast.


HHP (screens with Jitsvinger)
South Africa 2009 48min
Director: Ernie Vosloo


In this episode of the South African Who Do You Think You Are? series director Vosloo gets to grips with Jabulani Tsambo, aka Hip Hop Pantsula, voted Best Rap and Best Male Artist (SAMAs 2008).

HHP describes his music as motswako (the Tswana for ‘mixture’), but the film is less about his success or musical influences, and rather delves into the Mmabatho icon’s background to reveal a complex web of heritage of culture - Tswana royalty and Xhosa commoner on his mother’s side and Zulu and Shangaan on his father’s.

A few intriguing surprises are unearthed - particularly to do with Kgosi Mokgatle, his great grandfather and a Bafokeng chieftain at the time of the Kimberley diamond rush - and a rich history of social edginess despite South Africa’s supposedly puritanical past.

Ultimately Vosloo’s film does what few others have managed and goes a long way to answering the question ‘what does it mean to be African?’

HHP is a guest of the Festival and will attend the screening on Friday, 3 July.

This episode will be on SABC2 in Part One of Who Do You Think Are?, currently on on Sunday nights.

For more on-set pics of Part One, check out Snaparazzi ...

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? GALLERY:


The Invincibles (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 90min
Director: Mark J Kaplan

In 1974 the British Lions, citing a passion for rugby that surpassed politics, defied the mood of the day to tour Apartheid South Africa. At the time, the Springboks had never been defeated on their own soil, but Willie-John MacBride’s astoundingly organised and highly professional team put an end to this, and won 19 regional matches and 3 tests, drawing the last test.

For three months, using advanced tactics, cohesive teamwork, consummate skill and unexpected speed the Lions systematically embarrassed the South African teams in front of capacity crowds.

The South Africans retaliated with violence that resulted in one of the bloodiest rugby matches ever recorded. Drawn from archive footage, and reminiscences of the Lions, Bok, and Protea players, this documentary transcends sport and reveals the energy and passion of a young team that inadvertently, resoundingly, bloodied the nose of Apartheid’s most effective propaganda tool.

Kaplan is a guest of the Festival and will attend the screening on Wednesday, 8 July.


Kentridge and Dumas in conversation (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 74min
Director: Catherine Meyburg

A Politics and African Studies graduate, Kentridge also studied mime in Paris and worked as an art director for television. Arguably South Africa’s best-known, internationally renowned artist, he was included in Time 100, an annual list of the world’s most influential people. His work is exhibited and collected by major museums around the world.

Cape Town born and UCT educated, Dumas has lived in Holland since the mid-70s. Described as ‘an intellectual expressionist’ and ‘profoundly feminist’ her work has been exhibited the world over, most recently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2008).

These two instantly likeable, giant figures of South African art meet to discuss personal artistic process and practice, their perceptions of beauty, painting, reduction, application, and the subjects and mediums that they choose. Their chat gives us a gentle insight into their work, thoughts and feelings, and a fascinating glimpse into the working reality and studios of artists who refuse to be button-holed by one genre or another.

Kentridge will attend thel screening hosted by the Goodman Gallery on Wednesday 1 July.

The Last Voyage (screens with Freddy Ilanga) (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 48min
Director: Riaan Hendricks

Independent filmmaker, Genadendal-born Hendricks takes a journey back into his past as his present becomes a complicated place; his father is dying of cancer, his mother is battling to keep the household together and the ghosts of yesterday are threatening to overwhelm the present.

As he steps back, family secrets and long-held hurts are revealed that, if the future is to be better than the past, must be confronted. The film is an unapologetically personal trip, with the director-filmmaker at the very heart of the story.

This proximity lends The Last Voyage an arrestingly uninhibited quality, where the traditional barriers of documentary filmmaking are dismantled, exposing a raw immediacy that is both fascinating and engrossing.

Hendricks is a guest of the Festival and will attend the Première of his film on Monday, 6 July.

Lunchbox Bullies
South Africa 2009 48min
Dirs: Nhlanhla Mthethwa & Nadiva Schraibman

Despite comprehensive guidelines (Section 28 of the Bill of Rights), children in South Africa face more challenges to their health and well-being today than ever before. Through frank and often heartbreaking interviews with children, Lunchbox Bullies highlights the difficulties that often lead to children bullying each other.

A selection of bullies’ lives are chosen and examined, going beneath the surface of abuse, malnourishment and tragedy to starkly show the roots of violence in our society.

Yet despite the socialist leaning, the film commendably tackles the breadth of reasons behind why a child may go bad, asking startling questions about inherent psychology as well as society’s role.

Co-Director Mthethwa is a guest of the Festival and will attend the screening of his film on Friday, 10 July.


The Manuscripts of Timbuktu (South African Premiere)
South Africa 2008 87min
Director: Zola Maseko

Nestled in the desert wastes of Mali are the beautiful and evocative mud turreted mosques of Timbuktu. For 900 years, Timbuktu was the centre of African intellectualism, an important trade route, a satellite of Islamic learning, and home to the venerated writer, scholar, and political activist Ahmed Baba.

Today, Timbuktu’s golden age has faded, but its treasure is encapsulated in 10,000 exquisite, laboriously hand painted manuscripts that have been handed down from father to son for generations.

These archived, ancient manuscripts are now seen as an important part of Africa’s intellectual heritage, and have assisted in the revision and reclamation of Africa’s rich history.

Using interviews with present scholars, historians and Imams and a recreation of the life of Ahmed Baba, this thorough documentary explores and celebrates the manuscripts’ legacy against the broader political, social and intellectual African context.

Maseko is a guest of the Festival and will attend the screening of his film on Saturday, 4 July


Nature of Life (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 52min
Directors: Craig & Damon Foster

Climate change is increasingly a tired old cliché, but told from an African perspective, the Foster brothers’ film is both refreshing and illuminating, focusing as it does on local and regional realities.

They not only address the state-of-play on the African continent, but also look at uniquely African solutions to the problem and find answers in the very technologies that have taken us to the brink.

So the team at the Centre for Sustainable Energy at Stellenbosch University reveal their ‘hot air’ farms that have the capacity to power entire cities; or the Darling Wind Farm Project, which feeds directly into the national grid.

Sky kites on super tankers, viable, existing eco-villages, dye sensitised solar cells which enable buildings to generate their own electricity, and South Africa’s own electric car, the Joule are also revealed.

The film’s intention is not simply to look for solutions though, but rather to suggest a shift in behaviour and consciousness - towards a more sustainable, nature-based sense of life in balance.


Rewind Opening Night Film (World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 48min
Director: Liza Key

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was an extraordinary moment in our collective histories, a struggle to forgive, where 21,000 victims told their stories and 7,000 perpetrators confessed their crimes.

To mark its tenth anniversary, South African composer Philip Miller uses ‘shards - the exhalations, intonations, moans, murmurs, gasps – fragments from recorded testimonies to compose Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony.

This is the engrossing and, at times, harrowing story behind this exceptional and unusual artwork. Between excerpts of the Market Theatre performance, directed and designed by Gerhard Marx, Miller (composer of Yizo Yizo, Heartlines, Kentridge’s 9 Drawings for Projection and Noyce’s Catch a Fire) tells the story of the cantata’s development, and the recordings that inspired him are placed in a visual context using interviews with some of those who testified, and public broadcast and secret service archive footage.

Director Liza Key and Composer Philip Miller are guests of the Festival and will attend the Opening Night on Tuesday, 2 July.

Miller will conduct a Q&A after the film's screening on Sunday, 5 July


Seapoint Days (South African Premiere)
South Africa 2008 94min
Director: Francois Verster

Emmy Award-winning Verster’s latest film is an ode to the Mother City and its people.

Lying on the coast of Cape Town - South Africa's most segregated city - there is one public space where everyone does seem to come together: the previously exclusively white Sea Point Promenade and Municipal Pools.

Set between city and ocean, this beautiful strip of "everymansland" offers a quirky and often entertaining mix of class, race, gender and religion: a place where South Africans of all backgrounds can experience happiness together... But is all as it appears?

Sea Point Days presents an unusual and impressionistic record of life on the Promenade and in the pools, and the people who inhabit this space, using largely cinematic vignettes to explore issues of belonging, integration, nostalgia, happiness and identity in an ex-white South African neighbourhood.

Verster is a guest of the Festival and will attend the South African Première screening on Friday, 3 July.


Tribes and Clans (screens with The Pioneer of Paraguay) (World Premiere)
South Africa 2008 53min
Director: Ntokozo Mahlalela

Africa’s colonial past as a foundation for the tribalism that has impaired the continent’s progress underscores Mahlalela’s sharp, focused film about the ties that bind some of us.

From Mbeki’s intellectual ‘I am an African’ speech to the calling for a radical black Africanist direction for black Africans, the film deconstructs the complexities of self, culture and identity using the voices of some of the continent’s more radical thinkers, including Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana, Aubrey Matshiqi, Dan Habedi, Eugene Paramoer, Brigadier General Petra Mari, and the Vice Chancellor of UCT, Prof Thandabantu Nhlapo.

It is an unapologetically intellectual film, yet offers a revolutionary message of comprehensive reinvention. Splicing interviews with historical footage, the story goes back to the bible and forward to the divisive Apartheid years.

Mahlalela’s premise, that natural tribal differences were exacerbated by colonial powers, is backed up with evidence of the Bantustan apparatus and the imposed social structure of foreign entities. Not for the faint-hearted.

Mahlalela is a guest of the Festival and will attend the Première screening of his film on Saturday, 5 July.


Jitsvinger: maak it aan! (screens with HHP World Premiere)
South Africa 2008 27mins
Director: Nadine Angel Cloete

Slick of tongue, deft of finger, arresting of personality - poet, guitarist, hip hopster and cultural activist Quinton Goliath’s (aka Jitsvinger) lighting renditions give a voice to social change, and comment on language and identity. But what really makes him tock, and tickles his creativity?
Courtesy of the Director

Cloete and Quinton Goliath are guests of the Festival and will attend the Première screening on Tuesday, 9 July.


The Pioneer of Paraguay (screens with Tribes and Clans World Premiere)
South Africa 2009 15min
Director: Lisa Swart

Louis Nel is one of many Afrikaaners who emigrated to dictator Stroessner’s Paraguay in 1976 after the reciprocal state visit by JB Vorster. Many left, but Nel remained, integrated yet alienated.

This disturbing piece shows him as he manages to recall Die Stem on the organ, reveal his son’s faltering Afrikaans, and point the way to a distant South Africa from his rooftop.

Swart is a guest of the Festival and will attend the South African Première screening on Friday, 12 July.


Soul Train (screens with Daughter of Spirits Mother of Mine)
South Africa 2008 15min
Director: Thabo Bruno Makoena

Every weekday around 1.7 million commuters board trains from Soweto to Jozi, join together for camaraderie and security, and take the opportunity to worship. And so the ‘church coaches’ each attract followers of South Africa’s many religions - from the Shembe to the Emadlozini Church (traditional ancestor-worship), the evangelical Abalandelie Benkosi and the more conventional Baptist Church.

Makoena is a guest of the Festival.


Afghan Star
UK / Afghanistan 2009 87min
Director: Havana Marking

After 30 years of war and Taliban rule, pop culture has returned to Afghanistan. Millions are watching Afghan Star - a Pop Idol-style TV series in which people from across the country compete for a cash prize and record deal.

2,000 people audition, including three brave women. Now a national obsession - witness the workers scramble home to catch the latest instalment and the assembly of makeshift aerials to unscramble TV signals - viewers vote for their favourite singers by mobile phone, and for many this is their first encounter with democracy.

This timely and inspired film is both an account of a nation torn between tradition and modernity and the moving stories of four young contestants, each the pride of each of the ethnic communities they represent, each looking for a new life.

But their journeys take a terrifying turn as one young woman dances on stage, threatening her own safety and the future of the show itself. In Afghanistan you risk your life to sing.

Awards: Sundance 2009 - Audience and Directing Awards, World Cinema Documentary.


The Age of Stupid
UK 2009 90min
Director: Franny Armstrong

The year is 2055. Deep in the not-so-frozen wastes of Norway’s northern sea a fortress protects the astonishing achievements of soon-to-be-extinct Mankind. In this captivating, powerful and intentionally portentous film, the lone Archivist compiles footage of the warning signs that we collectively ignored.

In it, are seven likeable, well-meaning people. One is a crusader for change that is thwarted at every turn. Two are striving for a better life – one for themselves against all odds, the other for millions of others, but at a cost to the planet. The fourth is fighting for a valley that has changed beyond recognition.

The fifth, who has been through so much, has an uncertain future ahead of her, and a sixth (unsuccessfully) warns the world about the importance of keeping global warming with the 2-degree limit.

There is nothing so chilling as death-knell, and this film might just be the one for mankind.

Awards:
Sunny Side of the Doc 2008- Best green Doc
Grierson Award 2008 – Best Green Doc


Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country
Denmark / UK 2008 85min
Director: Anders Høgsbro Østergaard

In 2007, Burma was on the brink of a popular uprising. Taking themselves and the repressive Generals by surprise, gentle and devout citizens took to the streets in their thousands, singing and clapping their displeasure at the political status quo.

Then, unexpectedly, everyone held their breath as thousands of robed monks marched on the streets in solidarity. Subversively capturing this moment, when Burma teetered between joy and despair, were courageous, tenacious, amateur video journalists.

By turns enchanting, thrilling and sobering, this film uses collective footage to follow the personal victories and agonies, the perils and the camaraderie of the small, tight-knit counter-propaganda journalists of Burma. “Joshua" and his colleagues risk life and limb, torture, incarceration and death to smuggle out their visual witness of events from a closed and repressed country.

Awards:
IDFA 2008 – Joris Ivens and Movies that Matter Awards
Berlinale 2009 – Human Rights Award
Sundance 2009 – World Cinema Documentary Editing Award


The Champagne Spy (Meragel Ha-Shampaniya)
Germany / Israel 2007 90min
Director: Nadav Schirman

The time is 1961 and Egypt, under Gamal Nasser, is Israel’s biggest enemy. German scientists are helping the country make weapons of mass destruction and tension is high.

Into this dangerous powder keg, the Israelis plant Ze’ev Gur Arie, under the assumed name Wolfgang Lotz, as a prosperous horse breeder. He marries, lives the high life, and imbeds himself in the social hierarchy of Cairo. Except, unbeknown to that world, he was already married with a child.

His story is told through the eyes of his son years later, who recalls his dislocated youth in Paris, the eventual revelation of his father’s double life and the ultimate betrayal when Arie is caught and imprisoned, along with his second wife.

Schirman’s film, a surprisingly frank and detailed account of espionage in the 60s, is as much a poignant personal story as it is a look behind the Mossad curtain. Arie, Schirman contends, believed his cover, became it, loved it, forsook his real life and could not readapt to an unexceptional life once it was all over.

Awards:
Israeli Film Academy 2007 - Best Documentary
Palm Springs IFF 2008 - John Schlesinger Award
RiverRun IFF 2008 - Special Jury Prize


Defamation (Hashmatsa)
Israel / Denmark / Austria / USA 2009 91min
Director: Yoav Shamir

Throughout Shamir’s controversial and balanced film you know that only an Israeli could have the chutzpah to unpack the delicate subject of anti-Semitism.

On one side of the fence is the very powerful Anti-Defamation League (ADL), headed up by Abraham Foxman. His job is to sniff out and expose (the ADL has 27 branches in the US and high-profile missions globally) anything that could be construed as anti-Semetic speech or behaviour.

On the other side is controversial author, professor and son of holocaust survivors, Norman Finkelstein. His radical theory is of an Israeli-orchestrated political red herring.

Between are Israeli teens on a Mossad-protected school trip to Poland, devout Jews in Moscow, individuals that live in fear, and others that have no such belief.

Although beguilingly and lightly played, this intelligent film does raise very interesting and potent debates, and is bound to raise a few eyebrows.
Courtesy of the Director and the Austrian Film Commission

Shamir is a guest of the Festival. He will attend screenings on Tuesday, 9 July and Friday, 12 July. The Q&As after screenings will be chaired. .


Encounters at the end of the World
USA / Canada 2007 104min
Director: Werner Herzog

How difficult is it to document the most southern point in the world, without documenting penguins? Impossible, it seems.

This important, awe-inspiring, often surreal, always peculiar film is determined to turn the lens on the Antarctic through the fascinating scientific projects it hosts and the eccentric people driving them.

There are rocking, dry-suit divers who scan minus two degree depths for sci-fi one-celled creatures, there is the linguist that raises the daily salad in a state-of-the-art shed, the philosopher who drives the caterpillar truck around the devastatingly ugly McMurdo Station, and there is the Cambridge volcanologist who wears similar gear to Shackleton, whilst starting generators on Mount Erebus.

And of course, there are penguins, playing a supporting role. The quirky people and animals are infinitely beguiling, but the film’s main subject is Antartica and its extreme beauty is captured in all its glory.

Nominations:
Academy Awards 2009 – Best Documentary
Independent Spirit Award 2009 – Best Documentary


Fierce Light: when spirit meets action
Canada 2008 97min
Director: Velcrow Ripper

Velcrow Ripper is a social agitator and filmmaker who, after the death of a close friend at the hands of the Mexican police during the Free Trade riots, questions his activist path in life.

His quest takes him on a journey through contemporary resistance, and the film becomes as much an examination of the new left as it is a journey into one man’s spiritual motivation.

Ripper’s film is highly personal, taking him back to his Baha’i childhood and forward to the wisdom of Alice Walker, Gandhi and groups such as the GNSP, the Genesis of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, a forum working for the convergence of all activists.

Behind Ripper’s film is the central question: can spirituality and action converge, and his answer is a resounding yes, highlighting as he does Gandhi’s ‘soul force’ and ‘human sunrise,’ as well as the new ethos of activism: do not oppose, propose, be the revolutionary not the rebel.

Ripper is a guest of the Festival and travels courtesy of the Canadian High Commission. He will attend screenings on Tuesday 9 & Thursday 11 July and conduct a Master Class on Saturday 11 July.

Awards: Vancouver IFF 2008 – Best Documentary Feature


Four Wings and a Prayer
Canada / France 2007 81min
Dir: Nick de Pencier

First there was the March of the Emperor penguins, now it’s the Flight of the Monarchs.

With bright orange wings that span no more than 10cms, the Monarchs are intrepid, epic and unlikely long-distance travellers facing every obstacle nature and man can put in their way.

As they leave their dispersed breeding grounds in North America with synchronised precision every autumn, the sheer number of moving Monarchs reflects as a weather system on radar. Their journey, which includes crossing the Gulf of Mexico, ends 3,000 km to the south in the threatened pine trees of the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve, Mexico.

Revered by the Mexicans as the dearly departed returning, the Monarch is an amazing creature that mixes scientific intrigue, religious symbol, awesome display and heroic struggle for survival.

This ode to the butterfly is not only an exceptional and in-depth view into the life and journey of this spectacular insect, but is also a reminder of the power that man continues to wield over all living things.

Nominations: Gemini Awards – in Direction and Photography categories


Music From The Inside Out
USA 2008 90min
Director: Daniel Anker

Nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 (Scottsboro: An American Tragedy - Best Feature Documentary), Anker’s point in this beautifully crafted ode to music is simple – what is the essence of music and how does its powerful driving force shape and influence the people who make up the Philadelphia Orchestra?

The various members of the company take very personal journeys in their quest to answer those questions: Jewish and Arab members who segue into traditional music to better understand each other’s spirit; the dancer-turned musician who underscores the similarities with choreography; the child prodigy, Concertmaster David Kim, the only American violinist to win a prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow; the biker who likens a great ride to a well-wrought adagio.

The film follows the company on tour through Europe and China and, through a number of pivotal symphonies, draws out an explanation about the transcendental power of music. Sensitive editing means the interviews are part of, rather than interrupt, the music.

The Queen and I (Drottningen och jag)
Sweden 2008 90min
Dir: Nahid Persson Sarvestani

Farah, Shabanou, Queen, Empress of Iran, sparks acute emotions in filmmaker Sarvestani. Initially it was childlike awe when, while growing up in extreme poverty, she watched Farah’s spectacular wedding to the Shah.

Then it was hatred when as a teenager she joined Khomeini’s revolution. Now they both live in exile: Farah deposed by Khomeini, Sarvestani fleeing Khomeini’s violent betrayal.

Thirty years on, she remains fascinated by this tarnished symbol of her homeland. She approaches Farah for an interview and, though cautiously welcomed, gains unprecedented access.

Together they work on a film that Sarvestani initially intended as an exposé of Farah and all she represents. But the process forces (seduces?) Sarvestani to challenge her own expectations, ideals and political mindset. A gripping, poignant and gentle exploration of personal history and the truths we construct.

Nominations: Sundance 2009 – Grand Jury Prize, World Cinema Documentary


RIP - a remix manifesto
Canada 2009 85min
Dir: Brett Gaylor

In what is essentially the bizarre story of recent copyright law, director Gaylor examines music, medicine and other copyrights to make an impassioned plea for the reintroduction of free speech and ‘fair use’ in all areas of culture.

His film, as funky as it is arresting, uncovers some disturbing truths –Disney Corporation’s successful lobbying of the US Congress to tighten copyright substantially, the rapid centralisation of all copyright ownership, the dizzying breadth of contemporary copyright (even Happy Birthday is ‘owned’).

He contends that for culture to progress, society must be able to develop that which already exists. With corporations’ fingers in all pies, will ideas be determined by the public domain or private corporations?

Central to his film is the advent of the remixers in music – those that ‘borrow’ only to create anew and who are, under the law, criminals. The film itself becomes a poster child for its own point – by being ‘remade’ by other filmmakers Gaylor illustrates his idea of building a recreative culture, something that has always been, save for this century when the lock up of ideas began.


Rough Aunties
UK 2008 103min
Dir: Kim Longinotto

Child abuse is not an easy subject to digest, let alone watch a film about. But this remarkable, gut wrenching, yet uplifting documentary about a group of resolute, tough, outspoken, fervent and endlessly compassionate women reveals both the worst and the best of human kind.

Set in Durban, this film from award-winning Longinotto (Encounters 2007 guest, currently being honoured by MoMA), follows the work of an NGO called Bobbi Bear. Crossing social and racial divides, Thuli, Mildred, Sdudla, Eureka and Jackie crusade for the rights of abused children by securing the child and then pursuing each perpetrator.

They fight apathy, greed, corruption, the system and cultural stigmas all the way, making sure that perpetrators do not violate another child again. Despite crippling personal tragedies, these five exceptional women battle on, learning, growing and bringing comfort and hope to those children that have little of either.

Awards: Sundance 2009 - Grand Jury Prize World Cinema Documentary

Sacred Spaces (Lieux Saints)
Cameroon / France 2009 70min
Director: Jean-Marie Teno

Every year Africa’s biggest film event, the FESPACO Film Festival in Burkina Faso draws celebrities and crowds from across the continent and the globe. But few realise the rich film history of the country’s capital Ouagadougou, or the passion of its people for the medium.

Teno’s film steps into a parallel world and focuses on St Leon, a shantytown community in the heart of the city that lives and breathes film. He reconnects with the pioneering spirit of the festival of the 1980s before its inevitable commercialisation, and remembers what inspired him to take his message of an African cinema to an audience that truly understood it.

The film’s triumph is its ability to paint, through the comings-and goings at the tiny Bouba cine club, a vivid picture of a contemporary African community in all its complexity, while at the same time making the point that entertaining film can educate as well as enthrall.


Tyson
USA 2008 90min
Dir: James Toback

Tyson is acclaimed indie director Toback’s stylistically inventive portrait of the mesmerizing baddest boy of boxing and undisputed heavyweight champion of all time, Mike Tyson. Toback allows an ungloved Tyson to reveal himself without inhibition and with eloquence and a pervasive vulnerability.

Through a mixture of original interviews and archival footage and photographs, a startlingly complex, fully-rounded human being emerges. The film ranges from Tyson’s earliest memories of growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn through his entry into the world of boxing, to his rollercoaster ride in the funhouse of worldwide fame and fortunes won and lost.

It is the story of a legendary and uniquely controversial international athletic icon, a figure conjuring radical questions of race and class. In its depiction of a man rising from the most debased circumstances to unlimited heights, destroyed by his own hubris, Tyson emerges as a modern day version of classic Greek tragedy.

Awards: Cannes 2008 - Regard Knockout Award


Waltz with Bashir (Vals im Bashir) (screens with Slaves)
Israel | Germany | France | USA | Finland | Switzerland | Belgium | Australia
2008 90min
Director: Ari Folman

Nominated for the Best Foreign Film at the 2009 Academy Awards this atypical animated ‘memoir’ subtly explores the brain’s ability, both individual and collective, to suppress a horrifying incident conducted under the guise of war.

An old friend has a recurring nightmare from when he was a conscripted soldier in Israel’s 1982 invasion of the Lebanon. Folman realises he has completely suppressed his own memories of the events and becomes obsessed with excavating that which his brain found too horrific to retain.

Slowly and painfully, his memory of the shocking massacre of Palestinian refugees in the camps of Sabra and Chatila is restored. The film is suffused with the eerie, bilious yellow of the night flares the Israeli army used to light the camps as the Phalangists, supporters of the murdered Bashir Gemayel, slayed 3,000 men, women and children.

The distancing, surreal technique of the animation proves a stark contrast to the bright news footage that exposes this dark history.

Awards: Golden Globes Award 2009– Best Foreign Language Film
Cannes 2008 - Official Selection
National Society of Film Critics (USA) 2009 – Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film
British Independent Film Awards 2008 – Best Foreign Independent Film


Who Killed Maggie?
France 2009 52min
Director: William Karel

In 1990, after 11 years as one of Britain’s most influential and controversial leaders, Margaret Thatcher was ousted by her own party in a ‘Grecian tragedy of matricide.’

Now, nearly 20 years later, Karel tells the brutal story of the extraordinary events of her last few weeks, through commentary from all the major players – the executioners Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Kenneth Clarke as well as cabinet and inside commentators.

Karel’s tale begins with Thatcher’s notorious, alienating Poll Tax, and her party’s growing realisation that with her at the helm, the Conservatives could not win another election.

Her savaging of her Deputy, Howe, sparked the revolt. He exacted revenge with a pivotal – and bloody - resignation speech in Parliament, which led to a challenge for the leadership by Michael Heseltine, a series of ballots and her ignominious departure, literally overnight to rural banishment.

Karel’s film brilliantly captures the tension and tumult of the time and pulls no punches as it goes beneath the surface of a democracy, inelegantly, fascinatingly and frantically at work.

Karel is a guest of the Festival and will conduct a Master Class. See Page 4 for details.

Awards
FIPA d’Argent 2009 - Best Documentary


Yandé Codou, griot of Senghor (La Griotte de Senghor) (screens with Bronx Princess)
Senegal / France 2008 52min
Director: Angèle Diabang Brener

The official griot (praise singer and oral historian) to the first President of Senegal, Sedar Senghor, is the legendary Yandé Codou.

Years after his reign and her retirement, director Brener tracks down the icon on the eve of the Tabaski festival, to discover the soul behind the great voice.

Though clearly a shadow of her former self, the power of the woman is still evident and Brener follows a path through her life in the small community where she has settled.

There is illuminating detail about the complex structure of polyphonic praise singing as well as the history of call-and-response and spoken poetry in African music; indeed, this is a film as much about a West African musical heritage as it is about a powerful woman and a cultural West African richness. The traditional dress itself, ever present and vivid, is a character of its own in the film.



Youssou N’dour: I Bring What I Love
USA / France / Egypt / Senegal 2008 102min
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

This music-infused cinematic journey is about the power of one man’s voice to inspire change.

One of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world and called “the rare rock star whose music matters”, Senegalese singer Youssou N’dour is beloved internationally and at home.

In 2005, the Grammy winning artist defied expectations and produced his most personal album, Egypt, presenting his Islamic faith as a peaceable and tolerant religion.

While the record received international acclaim, it was denounced as blasphemy in his native Senegal.

Director Vasarhelyi followed N’dour for over two years, filming in Africa, Europe and America, to tell the story of how he faces these challenges and eventually wins over audiences both at home and abroad.

Awards
Middle East International Film Festival, Abu Dhabi 2008 - Special Jury Prize
São Paolo IFF 2008 - Audience Award
Bahamas IFF 2008 - Audience Award & Spirit of Freedom Award


Bronx Princess screens with Yandé Codou, griot of Senghor
USA / Ghana 2008 30min
Directors: Yoni Brook & Musa Suyeed

Bronx born and bred Rocky Otoo straddles two cultures and realities. Nearly 18, and excited by the prospect of freedom from her mother and being a princess in her royal Ghanaian father’s house, her future is set for confrontation and some home truths. Brook’s warm film tells of generational and personal conflicts in a boisterous, ever-changing, often crazy immigrant community.

Awards: Big Sky Documentary FF 2009 – Best Short Documentary


Freddy Ilanga: Che's Swahili Translator (screens with Last Voyage) (Worold Premiere)
Cuba / USA 2009 24min
Director: Katrin Hansing

In 1965 15 year-old Ilanga was ordered to work as Che’s Swahili translator during a secret Congo mission to train anti-Mobutu rebels. After 7 months by Che’s side, the Cuban authorities sent Ilanga to Havana without explanation. Forty years passed and he lost contact with his family and homeland. In 2003 he received an unexpected phone call from Bukavu, his home town...

Hansing is a guest of the Festival.


Slaves (Slavar) (screens with Waltz with Bashir)
Sweden 2008 15min
Directors: David Aronowitsch & Hanna Heilborn

His parents killed, separated from his sister, Abuk was enslaved at the age of 5. He and Machiek are two of 1000s of children taken by Sudan government sponsored militia to be used as slaves. Based on a 2003 interview of liberated children this is the director’s second immensely powerful, animated films, with and about children in difficult situations.

Aronowitsch & Heilborn are guests of the Festival.

Awards
IDFA 2008 – Silver Cub, Best Short Documentary
Berlinale 2009 - Special Mention, Generation 14plus Section

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Dates and times to follow closer to the festival.

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