It was a bit like the old days of the Weekly Mail Film Festival – a movie under threat of banning, an audience eager to see it, a contentious panel willing to discuss it and all the issues in detail.
But there were no protesters outside, and the attempts to halt the screening came not from state censors but the SABC, which had originally commissioned the film.
As part of the Mail & Guardian‘s Critical Thinking Forum and one of a set of screenings organised by the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust, the Unauthorised TV series episode on President Thabo Mbeki was shown on Wednesday evening at Atlas Studios in Johannesburg,
It followed a confusing few days of legal pussyfooting. The SABC initially sought to block the screening by interdicting the makers of the documentary, Broad Daylight Films, arguing that the corporation owned the work and any unauthorised screening contravened its intellectual property rights.
Then it changed tack and tried to interdict the M&G itself. After discussion with the filmmakers and the newspaper’s management, the hearing was postponed until August 22 – meaning the screening could go ahead.
The SABC had pulled the Mbeki documentary off air at the last minute when it was first scheduled for airing more than a year ago. The filmmakers were given no initial explanation, and controversy erupted.
SABC content enterprise executive Mvuso Mbebe assured the audience at the Critical Thinking Forum that the re-edited work would definitely be screened … some time.
Mbebe, who took much flak from the audience and from one of the filmmakers, Redi Direko, insisted that the film had been pulled because commissioning editors at the SABC had had ”problems” with it. Legal advice had indicated that it was defamatory of the president.
A lawyer in the audience questioned whether a sitting president, or any elected politician, could be defamed; another said he or she could.
One of the panelists, Jane Duncan of the Freedom of Expression Institute, cautioned that recent court judgements on the issue appeared to be taking a conservative turn.
Mbebe said the filmmakers had not delivered what was ordered – he had wanted ”a long red dress”, but had received ”a small black mini”.
The audience largely agreed: ”bad”, ”boring”, ”mediocre”, ”nothing new” were among the judgements from the floor on the black mini. Most felt, however, that it should be shown.
The forum saw the original version, cut from 45 minutes to less than half an hour – before the SABC’s initial objections.
Even the potentially defamatory mention of the ”rumour” that Mbeki had somehow been involved in the assassination of Chris Hani was felt to be barely credible. The South African Communist Party has in any event placed it firmly in the public domain.
The panelists, including the West Indian writer on Mbeki, Ronald Suresh Roberts, tended to speak at cross-purposes – except for a ”he-said, she-said” squabble between Mbebe and the filmmakers, Direko and co-director Ben Cashdan.
The two sides clearly have matters to resolve, including the fact that – despite the SABC’s insistence that it owns the film – it has not yet paid for it.
One audience member objected that they should ”damn well sort it out between themselves”. Another demanded that the corporation commit itself on when the documentary would be screened.
What seems clear is that, had the SABC shown the work when it was first scheduled, it would have caused barely a ripple.
Quotes from the forum
T-shirt worn by Ronald Suresh Roberts (an ”art work” by Cape Town artist Ed Young): ”Niggers can’t be choosers.”
Roberts on former education minister Kader Asmal: ”I assume it was one of the pseudonyms I used for my writing in the 1990s.”
Audience member to Roberts: ”I understand why they attack you so much in the media.”
Mvuso Mbebe: ”If we commission you, it’s our property.”
Mbebe: ”We are committed to showing the documentary.”
Audience member Bongani Madondo: ”[The film is] harmless, curable or incurable”.
Director Ben Cashdan (left) on the film: ”It’s not a great film … it won’t cause a genocide.”