Encounters 2024 South African International Documentary Festival has announced the South African film Mother City directed by Miki Redelinghuys and Pearlie Joubert as the opening film in a line-up of local, African, and international films that are making waves or garnered critical acclaim at festivals worldwide. The fest takes place at venues in Cape Town and Johannesburg from 20 to 30 June 2024.
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Mother City, the beautifully observed film that sparks transformation, is a deeply human and often heartbreaking look at urban politics. Over the course of six years, the filmmakers follow activists from the Reclaim the City movement as they make Cape Town’s abandoned spaces their home and use them as a base to lobby for working-class needs.
In a classic David versus Goliath battle between passionate activists, politics, and property power, Nkosikhona (Face) Swartbooi and his colleagues take to the streets, the courts, fancy dinner functions, parliament, and the homes of those in power to make their voices heard. They travel to Barcelona to meet with the Mayor who has successfully turned Barcelona’s housing crisis around, while also looking for solutions to Cape Town’s growing housing crisis.
The film allows viewers to put themselves in the shoes of the oppressed and dispossessed, to understand the true struggle of people who need homes closer to work, education, and recreation rather than being forced to live on the outskirts of cities. It addresses the right to access and the fairness of actively participating in an urban economy. It exposes the struggles of people who are frequently stigmatised and ‘othered’ for attempting to legitimately claim a place to live with their families.
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‘Mother City has been selected as our opening film, as it represents the heart of what documentary film-making is about,’ says Festival Director Mandisa Zitha. ‘Dedicated, tenacious, and vociferous in its approach to following a group of activists over a long period, to capture their challenges and frustrations, and indeed their successes. It speaks to the power of film in exposing the arduous journey so many in this world have to embark on to effect change. It is also a universally powerful story of the triumph of the collective.’
‘I have always thought of Mother City as a love letter to the city I call home and love very deeply,’ explains Miki Redelinghuys (Plexus Films) documentary filmmaker and impact producer. ‘But love can also be painful in as much as it is beautiful. This film is an expression of many diverse lives observed through our lens and we hope our audience leaves inspired with a vision for building a shared democratic South Africa. We are extremely grateful that we have been able to share this story.’
Pearlie Joubert, acclaimed investigative journalist who’s spent years as a news producer for ITV, Sky News and the BBC adds, ‘When Miki and I started filming Mother City, we dreamt that our film would shift permanently, the way one million visitors to Cape Town see this city and her policies. Now so many years later, we have only witnessed how politicians and property developers have formed and cemented an impenetrable wall keeping the poor out and away. Mother City is our ode to how ‘gatvol’ we are of this status quo.’
Mother City is produced by Kethiwe Ngcobo, Pearlie Joubert, and Miki Redelinghuys from Plexus Films and will have its World Premiere at the Sheffield Doc Fest in the UK in June before its African premiere at Encounters on 20 June.
Encounters 2024 will be screened at Ster-Kinekor V&A Waterfront and The Labia Theatre.
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Picture: Supplied