Miners Shot Down
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.
Marikana 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. To
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.
Hotspot
HotSpot! is an episodic, multi-protagonist, documentary series, currently in late development/early production. The series is aimed at local and international audiences and designed for use as a tool to assist people at different levels of society to grapple with the big threat that the climate emergency presents to humanity, bio-diversity and sustainability of life as we know it in Southern Africa.
The HotSpot! will be launched in 2023.
South African Food Crisis
Ten short documentaries that illustrate the flaws of the South African food system exposed through the COVID 19 pandemic.
All films will be available for partner free screenings from January 2021.