Encounters Film Festival offers screenings from HHP to Punk Rock

From the legendary Mike Tyson to Fokofpolisiekar and Sea Point Days - Encounters Film Festival in Cape Town has it all!

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 Encounters 2009!

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 - Tyson
USA 2008 90min
Dir: James Toback

A man rising from nothing to unlimited heights, destroyed by his own pride.

Tyson is acclaimed indie director Toback’s stylistically inventive portrait of the mesmerizing baddest boy of boxing and undisputed heavyweight champion of all time, Mike Tyson.

In its depiction of a man rising from the most debased circumstances to unlimited heights, destroyed by his own hubris, Tyson emerges as a modern day version of classic Greek tragedy.

18:30 - HHP + Jitsvinger

HHP
South Africa 2009 48min
Dir: Ernie Vosloo

HHP Knows uncovers who he is and what it means to be African.

In this episode of the South African Who Do You Think You Are? series, Vosloo gets to grips with Jabulani Tsambo, aka Hip Hop Pantsula, voted Best Rap and Best Male Artist (SAMA 2008).

The film delves into the Mmabatho icon’s background to reveal a complex web of heritage of culture - Tswana royalty and Xhosa commoner on his mother’s side and Zulu and Shangaan on his father’s.

HHP is a guest of the Festival and will attend the screening on 3 July.

Jitsvinger: maak it aan!
South Africa 2008 27mins
Dir: Nadine Angel Cloete

Slick of tongue, deft of finger, arresting of personality - poet, guitarist, hip hopster and cultural activist Quinton Goliath’s (aka Jitsvinger) lighting renditions give a voice to social change, and comment on language and identity.

Cloete and Quinton Goliath are guests of the Festival and will attend the Première screening on 9 July.

20:30 - Sea Point Days
South Africa 2008 94min
Dir: Francois Verster

A look at the Sea Point Promenade and Municipal Pools – an ‘everymansland’ in a divided city.

Emmy Award-winning Verster’s latest film Sea Point Days presents an unusual and impressionistic record of life on the Promenade and in the pools, and the people who inhabit this space, using largely cinematic vignettes to explore issues of belonging, integration, nostalgia, happiness and identity in an ex-white South African neighbourhood.

Verster is a guest of the Festival and will attend the South African Première screening on 3 July.

20:30 - Fokofpolisiekar - “Forgive them for they know not what they do”
South Africa 2009 108min
Dir: Bryan Little

A frustrated generation, disillusioned with the lies of the church and state, finding a space for expression.

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.

Little and Producer Filipa Domingues, will attend the Première screening of their film on 3 & 9 July.

*Times for each film are listed above

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

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