Festival:
The 22nd Encounters: South African International Documentary Festival
Dates:
August 20-30 (hybrid)
About:
Just under 40 nonfiction features screen online, as well as in select Cape Town and Johanneburg venues, for Africa’s largest documentary event.
Among the offerings:
GOOD HOPE
Director: Anthony Fabian
A hopeful portrait of the first generation of South Africans to live in a free democracy, as they tackle the nation’s history of colonialism and apartheid.
A NEW COUNTRY
Director: Sifiso Khanyile
A reckoning with the promise and harsh reality of South Africa in the 25 years since its transition to democracy.
BY ALL MEANS NECESSARY
Director: Ramadan Suleman
A rich chronicle of half a century of Africa’s Liberation Movement, from Algeria to South Africa.
MRS F
Director: Chris van der Vorm
Ifeoma Fafunwa, AKA Mrs F, a middle-class Nigerian woman, facilitates feminist workshops in a floating shanty town on the edge of Lagos.
FINDING SALLY
Director: Tamara Mariam Dawit
A personal investigation into the mysterious life of the director’s aunt Sally, an Ethiopian aristocrat-turned-communist-rebel who disappeared during the Ethiopian Revolution.
FINDING SALLY
Director: Glenn Ujebe Masokoane
An exploration of the South African jazz scene of the 1950s and 60s through the music of iconic maestro Gideon Nxumalo.
IL MIO CORPO
Director: Michele Pennetta
The parallel stories of Oscar, a young working class Sicilian boy, and Stanley, a Nigerian refugee, both living on the margins of a world that has discarded them.
HUTCHINSON: SHUNTED
Directors: Eric Miller and Laurine Platzky
A snapshot of small-town life in a vanishing railway town during the apartheid era and its transition to democracy.
FROM UNDERGROUND TO THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Director: Teddy E Mattera
A detailed and critical look at the history of South Africa’s mine workers’ union and its role in the nation’s labor movement and broader political landscape.
BEYOND MY STEPS
Director: Kamy Lara
A look at the 2017 season of the Contemporary Dance Company of Angola, focusing on five dancers who explore tradition, culture, memory, and identity.
what (not) to doc 