Directed by Yaba Badoe, Sharon Farr and Nelson Makengo

Synopsis: Women Hold Up the Sky tells the story of how women activists affected by mining and other forms of large-scale extractives in South Africa, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are deeply engaged in resistance and an active struggle to take back control of their land, their rights, their bodies and their lives.

Journeying between these three countries, this documentary reveals the experiences and activism of women in three African countries but tells a much bigger story of the ongoing exploitation of natural resources and marginalisation of poor communities, particularly women.

This film was developed by WoMin , an ecofeminist African alliance that supports local struggles and movements across the continent to expose the impacts of extractivism on African women and advance women-centred, community-driven and climate-just development alternatives.

Website: https://www.womenholdupthesky.co.za/about/

Link: https://vimeo.com/365029724

Password: Womandla!2020

Directed by Rehad Desai

Synopsis: Our story begins by showing how the three Gupta brothers ensconce themselves with President Jacob Zuma, allowing them within 10 years of arriving from India to become multi-millionaires, primarily through lucrative state contracts. They then buy an uranium mine, attracting the attention of British and US intelligence agencies. Next, the finance minister is fired, which we reveal is over his refusal to sign an irregular nuclear deal with Russia and several leading political figures go public, describing how the Gupta’s are directing critical government affairs. There’s a flurry of fake news, dodgy intelligence reports and attacks on journalists, in defence of ‘radical economic transformation’.

When a second ‘uncooperative’ finance minister is fired, his speech on the steps of the Treasury is the first time a senior member of the ANC appeals to the public to defend South Africa’s hard won democracy.

Then come the #GuptaLeaks, a trove of over 300,000 emails and documents akin to the Panama Papers, laying bare the modus operandi of the Guptas and their associates, more dangerous than anyone could have imagined. Taking us from one family, to a president, to a captured state, to the central role of unscrupulous multinationals, the escalating layers of this story unfold like a Shakespearean tragedy that will hold up a mirror to many countries facing similar circumstances today.

Link: https://vimeo.com/387695357

Password: HTSAC90

Directed by Shannon Walsh and Arya Lalloo

Synopsis: Shot as a collaborative, cinema-direct documentary by a team of South African women directors over the course of a day, Jeppe on a Friday is a day-in-the-life look at how identity and community are defined in a changing African metropolis. Underneath it all are everyday struggles, laughter and love, and the discovery of how to live with, or apart from each other.

Link: https://vimeo.com/52544119

Directed by Kurt Orderson

Synopsis: As cities around the world catapult themselves into ‘world-class city status’, we have to ask ourselves, “at what cost”? Not in My Neigbourhood tells the intergenerational stories of spatial violence in three self-professed world-class cities: Cape Town, New York and São Paulo.

This film aims to build solidarity among active urban citizens by illuminating the tools and approaches used by urban activists to shape and navigate their cities that have been affected by colonization, architectural apartheid and gentrification.

Not in My Neigbourhood explores the effects of various forms of spatial violence on the spirit and social-psyche of city dwellers. We follow the daily struggles, trials and triumphant moments of active citizens, fighting for the right to their cities.

Link: https://vimeo.com/234026239

Password: africa2020

Directed by Simon Gush

Synopsis: The films started from an anecdote about my ancestor, Richard Gush. On arriving in Salem, South Africa, he deliberately built a church before building a house for his family – the act of work, a way to claim his space in a new land. This church and the land around Salem were part of a controversial land claim making its way through the courts. The legal aspect is the subject of the first film, Land is in the Air. Land and work are central to this project. I am interested in how historically and in the present day they are entangled; how the dispossession of land was linked to the creation of a workforce for the colony and how work still affects and structures the processes of return. Collaborating on the interviews with my neighbour, journalist Niren Tolsi, opened up stories I had not expected to find. On the third day of filming in Salem we found ourselves on the doorstep of the Madinda family, caretakers of Castle Farm. For more than 10 years the Madindas have been trying to get Castle Farm running. Their experiences and the obstacles they face form the basis of the third film, Working the Land. Mr Mongezi Madinda’s beautiful narration of the history of the land, his retelling of the story of Richard Gush and the ways this deviates from the settler myths that I was exposed to as a child are the basis for the second film, A Button without a Hole. It contrasts Mr Madinda’s narrative with the stories repeated in books and a 1970 play by Guy Butler titled Richard Gush of Salem. The aesthetic films are inspired by Karl Marx’s writings on primitive accumulation and enclosure. I was struck by how beautifully he writes; how he seamlessly moves from the factual to the poetic, and how, with a wry humour, he speaks of the absurdities and ironies of the myths of capitalism.

Land is in the Air:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/270107162

A button without a hole:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/290428682

Working the Land:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/295605954

Note: Please adjust the playback resolution using the settings wheel icon if the video is pixelated.

Directed by Fulan Fulan Gang, Radical Education Network, and Tribe of Moles

Synopsis: Two radical collectives working inside and outside of the academy to agitate with ideas and actions against ongoing histories of dispossession consider what redistribution means in the most unequal national context on earth. In a 50-minute short film, we look at how the promises of redistribution in the anti-apartheid liberation movement were foreclosed during the transition out of apartheid in South Africa. We interview three left economists who were active in the anti-apartheid movement but have lived through a transition in which the promise and idea of redistribution was abandoned as South Africa inserted a post-apartheid project into global processes of financialization and neoliberalization.

Link: https://vimeo.com/403625043/e86a47e6fd