Chat with Kentridge and Dumas and listen to the power of Youssou N'dour Voice

Encounters films inspire change and uncover the Political tension in Margaret Thatcher's life

Encounters Documentary Festival is South Africa’s premier film festival – each year the festival brings you world premiers, award winning films, and once-off screenings you can’t afford to miss. So grab a program, make your picks and head down to the Fest today!

For a complete outline of the Encounters events taking place in Cape Town, read our overview of the 2009 Encounters Documentary Film Festival.

18:30 - Kentridge and Dumas in conversation
South Africa 2009 74min
Dir: Catherine Meyburg

A Politics and African Studies graduate, Kentridge also studied mime in Paris and worked as an art director for television. Arguably South Africa’s best-known, internationally renowned artist, he was included in Time 100, an annual list of the world’s most influential people.

Dumas has lived in Holland since the mid-70s. Described as ‘an intellectual expressionist’ and ‘profoundly feminist’ her work has been exhibited the world over, most recently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2008).

Their chat gives us a gentle insight into their work, thoughts and feelings, and a fascinating glimpse into the working reality and studios of artists who refuse to be button-holed by one genre or another.

Kentridge will attend a special screening hosted by the Goodman Gallery on Wednesday 1 July.

18:45 - Who Killed Maggie?
France 2009 52min
Dir: William Karel

In 1990, after 11 years as one of Britain’s most influential and controversial leaders, Margaret Thatcher was ousted by her own party in a ‘Grecian tragedy of matricide.’

Now, nearly 20 years later, Karel tells the brutal story of the extraordinary events of her last few weeks, through commentary from all the major players – the executioners Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Kenneth Clarke as well as cabinet and inside commentators.

Karel’s film brilliantly captures the tension and tumult of the time and pulls no punches as it goes beneath the surface of a democracy, inelegantly, fascinatingly and frantically at work.

Karel is a guest of the Festival and travels courtesy of the French Embassy.

20:15 – Youssou N’dour: I Bring What I Love
USA / France / Egypt / Senegal 2008 102min
Dir: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

This music-infused cinematic journey is about the power of one man’s voice to inspire change.

Director Vasarhelyi followed N’dour for over two years, filming in Africa, Europe and America, to tell the story of how he faces challenges and eventually wins over audiences both at home and abroad.

20:30 - Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country
Denmark / UK 2008 85min
Dir: Anders Høgsbro Østergaard

In 2007, Burma was on the brink of a popular uprising. Taking themselves and the repressive Generals by surprise, gentle and devout citizens and monks took to the streets in their thousands, singing and clapping their displeasure at the political status quo.

By turns enchanting, thrilling and sobering, this film uses collective footage of the courageous, tenacious, amateur video journalists to follow the personal victories and agonies, the perils and the camaraderie of the small, tight-knit counter-propaganda journalists of Burma.

22:30 - Fokofpolisiekar “Forgive them for they know not what they do”
South Africa 2009 108min
Dir: Bryan Little

In-your-face progressive punk rock band Fokofpolisiekar are the subject of Little’s spirited look at both the contemporary Afrikaans music industry and the shifting cultural sands of morphing white Afrikaans culture.

Told in interview and through original video of their first tour and album, the film focuses on how the Bellville band came to be a voice for the dislocated youth straddling the before-and-after of 1994.

*Tickets can be purchased online on the Encounters website or at the V&A Waterfront box office

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