by Thinus Ferreira
While more viewers flock to populist reality TV fare like Real Housewives, feature documentaries like those currently screening at 2024's 26th Encounters documentary festival are what often have the longer real-world impact and power to affect change.
"In South Africa, the challenge however is often to secure funding for making documentaries because, in order for us to make the kind of documentaries that travel to other markets, we do need external funding, we do need global funds, we do need to enter into co-productions," Mandisa Zitha, festival director of the 26th Encounters South Africa International Documentary
Festival, tells me.
The 26 Encounters festival that just kicked off takes place in Cape Town and Johannesburg until 30
June, features a compelling line-up of films from around the globe.
From the Congo to Kenya, the United States and Europe, and from Lebanon to Japan, close to 50 documentaries are currently being screened in Cape Town at the Ster-Kinekor V&A Waterfront and the Labia Theatre, and in Johannesburg at the Ster-Kinekor Rosebank Nouveau and The Bioscope Independent Cinema.
"Documentary filmmaking has become a very competitive environment globally and the funding for documentaries are becoming constrained," Zitha says.
"The way documentaries are being funded is rapidly changing. I think the documentary genre is experiencing a lot of challenges globally and locally."
"But I can say that because of the streaming platforms like MultiChoice's Showmax and Netflix commissioning more local documentary productions, some of our local South African documentary producers and directors are finding some new opportunities for work through these streaming services and docu-series."
Complex realities opened up
Mandisa Zitha says documentaries fulfil a very important role as a genre "and it's a priority to encourage that and to cultivate audiences to actually engage with and watch the documentary format - especially encouraging a younger generation of filmmakers to try making these".
"Documentaries are a really unique visual genre that deals with the complex realities of our societies. It's a way for us to mediate and help and discuss and reflect and to engage with what is going on around us," she says.
"Documentaries always provide the viewer with another perspective that we often don't get in mainstream media. So documentaries and local South African documentary-making is a genre that should be encouraged. Together with that, we need to cultivate a growing audience for this work so that it can continue to play this key role that it fulfils in impacting society."
Zitha says the public should support the 26th Encounters festival and make the effort to go and watch and support the work of the documentary filmmakers on show.
"We have documentary festivals and art festivals but the public doesn't always realise that it's very difficult to sustain these organisations and initiatives. I think globally there is a crisis for funding for film festivals and festivals generally," she says.
"Some of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world are making statements around funding crises. The public, if they enjoy the documentaries we present - which are films which you will simply not see on your normal cinema circuit or on video streaming platforms ... this is really a special opportunity to see some of the best documentaries from around the world."
"The 26th Encounters is a unique opportunity to see some of the best documentary talent in South Africa and to support an initiative that keeps bringing this to local audiences."
"This year we're bringing in a documentary symposium as well as a new event to really interrogate what's happening within the African documentary landscape and we hope to grow this in the future as a pivotal event on our Encounters festival platforms," Zitha says.
"People get interesting discussions after screenings, the guest protagonists of films are present to talk to, and that's what people enjoy about going to Encounters: Being in community with other documentary enthusiasts."
Film line-up
Some of the documentaries included in the 26th Encounters festival film line-up include Soundtrack to a Coup d'État, a
riveting documentary that delves into the complex relationship between music
and political upheaval.
Directed by Johan
Grimonprez, jazz and politics are
intertwined in this depiction of murky international interference in
decolonisation and the Cold War.
In Mother City, filmmakers follow activists of the Reclaim the City movement over six years as they make Cape
Town's abandoned spaces their home and use it as a base from which to lobby
for the needs of the working class.
The Kenyan film Our Land, Our Freedom directed
by Zippy Kimundu, is a highly charged conversation about stolen land
that follows a woman's attempt to reclaim ancestral land.
Black Box Diaries directed by
journalist Shiori Itō bravely investigates a case of sexual violence
perpetrated against her to bring her powerful, politically connected assailant
to justice.
Johatsu – Into
Thin Air directed by Andreas Hartmann and Arata Mori explores the
phenomenon of people who disappear known as Johatsu or "the evaporated" in
Japan where around 80 000 people vanish every year.
The film shows people who have chosen to do this
and those looking for them, as well as the people who help them so they can
reset their lives in places where no one knows them.
Hollywoodgate from Egyptian director Ibrahim Nash documents the transition of Afghanistan to
Taliban rule after the US withdrawal in 2021. The Taliban took over one of
the USA's CIA bases with infrastructure of containers bearing the
name "Hollywood Gate" filled with weapons enabling them to equip a new
combat unit. Over a year, Nash'at follows the development of this unit and
provides an authentic inside glimpse into the Taliban's rapid rise to
power.
Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano, directed by Cyril Aris is a heartwarming and lucid documentary. After a massive
explosion devastated the port in Beirut in August 2020, a determined crew of
filmmakers continued their project in an effort of resistance. Amidst the
city's destruction and an economic crisis during Covid-19 this family of
artists finds meaning and purpose through the transformative power of cinema.
Nick Chevallier,
Leigh Wood and Guido Zanghi's Wild Coast Warriors explores the fight against
the establishment of oil exploration operations by the Shell corporation in the
Wild Coast in an effort to prevent the irreversible destruction of the
environment and surrounding communities.
Diary of an Elephant Orphan directed
by Hermien Roelvert-Van takes the audience through the
struggles and turmoils of orphaned baby elephants and the people who have made
it their life's mission to save them.
The film follows Khanyisa, a baby
elephant newly orphaned, on her journey in becoming strong enough to join a
herd of her own.
