Festival:
The 19th Encounters Documentary Festival
Dates:
June 1-11
About:
Nearly 50 features are in the lineup of Africa’s largest nonfiction event, with screenings taking place in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa.
While the festival offers a well-curated selection of recent international projects, it also presents several South African projects, including a number focused on women: Nomakhomazi Dewavrin’s INDWE, a music-oriented exploration of an historic 1950s women’s march; Aliki Saragas’ STRIKE A ROCK, which looks at female political activists in the wake of the 2012 Marikana massacre; Lucy Witts and Brad Schaffer’s DRAGAN’S LAIR, a personal film in which one of the filmmakers confronts her abuser; and Eva Munyiri’s WAITHIRA
(pictured), a portrait of the filmmaker’s Kenyan grandmother.
A number of South African films reckon with injustice, both historical and current, including: Sifiso Khanyile’s UPRIZE! (pictured), on under-explored student protests and murders in 1976; Vincent Moloi’s SKULLS OF MY PEOPLE, about the quest by Namibians to receive reparation for Germany’s colonial past; Davison Mudzingwa and Lucas Ledwaba’s TROUPES OF WAR: DITURUPA, a look at black South African military tradition; Miki Redelinghuys’ THIS LAND, which exposes government-backed corporate land grabbing in ruiral South Africa; and Aryan Kaganof’s METALEPSIS IN BLACK, an experimental chronicle of a recent student protest movement.
Additional national cinema featured at the event includes Daniel Zimbler’s GOLDBLATT, about one of the nation’s leading photographers; Riaan Hendricks’ A COUNTRY OF FISHERS, an observational portrait of a fisherman; and Bryan Little’s DEEP BLUE/MIDDLE C, a psychedelic surf film documenting an interdisciplinary coastal collaboration.
what (not) to doc 