Witness Tragedy, Espionage and Traditionalism at the Encounters Festival

Travel to Germany with an Israeli spy, to Paraguay with a Staunch Afrikaaner and back to SA with radical tribalists

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.

14:30 - Waltz with Bashir + Slaves

Waltz with Bashir (Vals im Bashir)
Israel | Germany | France | USA | Finland | Switzerland | Belgium | Australia 2008 90min
Dir: Ari Folman

An atypical animated ‘memoir’ that subtly explores the brain’s ability to suppress a horrifying incident.

Nominated for the Best Foreign Film at the 2009 Academy Awards, this atypical animated ‘memoir’ subtly explores the brain’s ability - both individual and collective - to suppress a horrifying incident conducted under the guise of war.

Slaves (Slavar)
Sweden 2008 15min
Dirs: David Aronowitsch & Hanna Heilborn

Based on a 2003 interview of liberated children this is the director’s second immensely powerful, animated films, with and about children in difficult situations.

Aronowitsch & Heilborn are guests of the Festival and will attend screenings of their film.

15:45 - The Champagne Spy (Meragel Ha-Shampaniya)
Germany / Israel 2007 90min
Dir: Nadav Schirman

He believed his cover, became it, loved it, forsook his real life and could not re-adapt to an unexceptional life once it was all over.

Schirman’s film, a surprisingly frank and detailed account of espionage in the 60s, is as much a poignant personal story as it is a look behind the Mossad curtain.

15:45 – Tribes & Clans + The Pioneer of Paraguay

Tribes and Clans
South Africa 2008 53min
Dir: Ntokozo Mahlalela

Explore the ties that bind from the perspective of Africa’s more radical thinkers.

The film deconstructs the complexities of self, culture and identity using the voices of some of the continent’s more radical thinkers. Not for the faint-hearted.

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

The Pioneer of Paraguay
South Africa 2009 15min
Dir: Lisa Swart

A somber look at what happens when you can’t let go of an antiquated regime.

This disturbing piece shows Louis Nell - one of many Afrikaners who emigrated to dictator Stroessner’s Paraguay in 1976 - as he manages to recall Die Stem on the organ, reveal his son’s faltering Afrikaans, and point the way to a distant South Africa from his rooftop.

Swart is a guest of the Festival and will attend the South African Première screening on 12 July.

18:00 - Rewind
South Africa 2009 48min
Dir: Liza Key

Shards of sound from the TRC hearings come together to form a truly harrowing Cantata.

To mark its tenth anniversary, South African composer Philip Miller used ‘shards from The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) - the exhalations, intonations, moans, murmurs, gasps – fragments from recorded testimonies to compose Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony.

19:45 - The Queen and I (Drottningen och jag)
Sweden 2008 90min
Dir: Nahid Persson Sarvestani

A tale of a Queen and the filmmaker who awed, hated, and aimed to expose her.

After gaining unprecedented access to an interview, this process forced (seduces?) Sarvestani to challenge her own expectations, ideals and political mindset.

20:00 - 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.

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

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