Chiken Bizniz: The Whole Story is an award-winning film about a man who leaves
his job at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to become a chicken mogul in Soweto.
By all accounts it’s a regular crowd-pleaser.
The Great Dance: A Hunter’s Story is a visually beautiful documentary about three San hunters tracking their prey while explaining their philosophy of life
to us. It has won numerous awards.
The Guguletu Seven is streets ahead of most other political documentaries. Based
on the premise that the truth will out, it feels like a political thriller the
classic film Z by Costa Gavras comes to mind and puts the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a more universal context. Check out the soundtrack
by Philip Miller.
Ingrid Jonker: Her Lives & Time The Director’s Cut promises to be a milestone
work by director Helena Noguiera, who has managed to get rare archival footage
and interviews about the woman Nelson Mandela quoted when he opened Parliament
for the first time in the new South Africa. There was some poetic justice in
this, since it was there that Jonker’s father, a Nationalist MP, publicly denounced her. She committed suicide in 1965.
The King is Alive. Set in the Namib desert, a group of international tourists
gets stranded and decides to perform one of Shakespeare’s darkest plays, King
Lear. Starring the delightfully strange Jennifer Jason Leigh, this Dogma film
will premiere at the Standard Bank National Arts Film festival.