Taking place in Johannesburg and Cape Town between today, Thursday, June 2 and next Sunday, June 12, South Africa’s Encounters is the continent’s largest nonfiction event. The 18th edition of the festival includes more than three dozen nonfiction features, with nearly half of that number representing African productions, including the highlights below:
Among the local films featured at the fest are: Siphamandla Bongwana, Jerry Obakeng Gaegane, Stanford Gibson, Nduduzo Shandu, Asanda Kupa, and Gontse More’s SOWETO, TIME OF WRATH, the opening night selection, which exposes the disenfranchised fighting back against the status quo of corruption; Aryan Kaganof’s OPENING STELLENBOSCH, an inside look at the movement to change a South African university’s exclusionary policies; Jean-Paul Moodie’s THE BLACK CHRIST, about the persecution that followed an artist’s apartheid-influenced work in the early 1960s; Melanie Chait’s WALKING IN MY SHOES (pictured), which explores the struggles of the rural poor to gain access to education; Davison Mudzingwa’s LOST TONGUE, on a vanishing community’s attempts to preserve their culture and language; Uga Carlini’s ALISON, which recounts an infamous case of rape and attempted murder; and Ben Stillerman’s TAKING STOCK, the filmmaker’s consideration of his family’s multigenerational business.
what (not) to doc 