Encounters 2009 Issues a Music Manifesto and Gives You the Real Great Escape

Stories of WWII Prisoner of War camp escapes and Music Copyright at Encounters Fest

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 - Encounters at the end of the World
USA / Canada 2007 104min
Dir: Werner Herzog

This important, awe-inspiring, often surreal, always peculiar film is determined to turn the lens on the Antarctic through the fascinating scientific projects it hosts and the eccentric people driving them.

The quirky people and penguins are infinitely beguiling, but the film’s main subject is Antarctica and its extreme beauty is captured in all its glory.

18:30 - For Which I am Prepared to Die
South Africa 2009 85min
Dir: Lindy Wilson

What happens when Roger Bushell leaves a POW camp without asking.

A mastermind of numerous WWII Prisoner of War camp escapes, Roger Bushell’s planned escapes are shown through his astonishingly detailed and meticulously planned escapes through a mixture of letters home, recreation and interview, culminating in his heroic plan to liberate 70 men through a tunnel from his Baltic POW camp.

Wilson is a guest of the Festival and will attend the Première screening of her film on 5 July.

20:30 - Deep Friends + River of Ashes

Deep Friends
South Africa 2009 25min
Dir: Liz Fish

Beautifully shot on location at the Chimfunshi chimp and wildlife sanctuary in northern Zambia, on the Congo border, this is the tale of Sandy, a powerful, troubled and distrustful chimpanzee and his caregiver and friend, Dominique Chinyama.

River of Ashes
South Africa 2009 25min
Dir: Emma Bestall

Through a day-in-the-life of three people who exist by, with and from, the Ganges River, this film is really the story of the river of the past 1,000 years.

The film uses the river’s narrative to explore the intricacies and inherent ironies surrounding concepts of purity, impurity, the holy and mundane, which is acted out daily on its banks.

18:45 & 20.45 - RIP - a remix manifesto
Canada 2009 85min
Dir: Brett Gaylor

In what is essentially the bizarre story of recent copyright law, director Gaylor examines music, medicine and other copyrights to make an impassioned plea for the reintroduction of free speech and ‘fair use’ in all areas of culture.

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

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