The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the Human Rights Media Trust (HRMT) in partnership with the German aid agency, Brot für die Welt (BfdW), are proud to announce the launch of a nationwide accountability campaign: State Capture and Beyond. The objective of this initiative, co-funded by the European Union, is to address the culture of corruption that plagues South Africa’s democracy and to foster greater and more informed public participation in holding state power accountable. HRMT’s primary role in the campaign is production of media to enhance the campaign goals, and the building of a national anti-corruption coalition, centring the struggles of communities on the ground.
In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. The police insisted that they shot in self- defense. Miners Shot Down tells a different story, one that unfolds in real time over seven days, like a ticking time bomb. The film weaves together the central point-of-view of three strike leaders, Mambush, Tholakele and Mzoxolo, with compelling police footage, TV archive and interviews with lawyers representing the miners in the ensuing commission of inquiry into the massacre. What emerges is a tragedy that arises out of the deep fault lines in South Africa’s nascent democracy, of enduring poverty and a twenty year old, unfulfilled promise of a better life for all.
A campaigning film, beautifully shot, sensitively told, with a haunting soundtrack, Miners Shot Down reveals how far the African National Congress has strayed from its progressive liberationist roots and leaves audiences with an uncomfortable view of those that profit from minerals in the global South.
Tricontinental Film Festival
Every year since its inception in 2002, the TriContinental Human Rights Film Festival has screened powerful films from South Africa and across the globe, exploring some of the most urgent local and global issues of our time.
With a passion to support the fight for human rights and democracy through media, the TCFF offers stories from the bleeding edge of current social and political waves – stories that are not only relevant to our time, but skillfully told through beautiful cinema.
Marikanna Support Campaign
The Marikana Support Campaign primarily helps to fund legal representation for the families of those affected by the massacre and also provides support to the widows and children of the slain miners. The campaign helps to organise and support protest action in Marikana and across the country and produces campaign materials, t-shirts, badges and leaflets to ensure that Marikana is not forgotten.
Filmmakers Against Racism
Filmmakers Against Racism (FAR) is an initiative launched on 23rd May in response to the shocking wave of xenophobia violence hitting South Africa. They will be producing six 24 minute documentaries as well as many 30 second Public Service Announcements, which will be broadcast by SABC, and hopefully other commercial broadcasters as well as community TV stations.
