Docs showing at this year’s Festival

Advocate is an absorbing account of the life of Jewish-Israeli advocate Lea Tsemel, who has worked tirelessly for nearly 50 years defending Palestinians against charges laid by the Israeli state. Directed with compassion and restraint, this richly multi-layered exploration of Tsemel’s life is equal parts courtroom drama and character study.

Animation can take the relevant and relatable everyday- narratives and turn them into big fantastical adventures.

A border in Europe. A painting by Paul Klee. A poem by Walter Benjamin. A film about yesterday and today, and how difficult it is to recognize one behind the other.

This film about the life of Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza portrays its charismatic and passionate subject as a man of strength and integrity without descending into excessive praise or hagiography. An engaging film which makes effective use of cinematic portraiture to provide a broader history of the country.

The story of Arie, an autistic young man whose family only came to fully understand his condition when he was nine years old.

This fascinating look at the graffiti artist who has achieved global fame without ever revealing his name, provides an account of Banksy’s anarchic career, from the early appearances of his work in Bristol to the ways in which the enigmatic artist has invisibly scaled the heights of the art world while at the same time ridiculing its values.

This remarkable film looks at a small group of self-appointed investigators who use publicly available resources on the internet to determine the truth about key recent news events such as the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines plane over Ukraine. Bellingcat is an inspiring tribute to the power of citizen journalism – and its impact on mainstream reportage.

Armand Hough is a photojournalist based in Cape Town who tracked daily events in the city during lockdown.

Five dancers explore the concepts of tradition, culture, memory, and identity, questioning the transformation and deconstruction of these themes in their own lives.

From a rural South African village, three young people emerge as eco-warriors. Armed with a camera, the trio aim to rise above their difficult pasts and reframe the narrative of wildlife conservation.

Here is a documentary that highlights the events that led up to and may have even been the reason for the death of 28 people on September 7th of 1992 during a march into the then Independent state of Ciskei.

Blend follows a couple’s choice to have a blended wedding as part of an unspoken promise they’ve made to one another.

This documentary about the controversial 1974 boycott-breaking British Lions Tour to South Africa where they played against the Springbok rugby team, focuses on one particular rugby player, Dugald Macdonald, and Jenefer Shute, a young woman who ran onto the field protesting the match, a moment that would change both their lives forever.

In a society where dark-skinned girls are not considered as beautiful, a young South African girl struggles to see beauty in her reflection until she holds her own “Brown Skinned Girl AA meetings” and reintroduces herself to herself.

By All Means Necessary is a feature-documentary that chronicles 50 years of Africa’s Liberation Movements from Algeria to South Africa. It commemorates the various sacrifices made by men and women across the continent.

This masterfully produced documentary about avant-garde dancer Merce Cunningham and his enduring relationship with avant-garde musician John Cage blends recreations of Cunningham’s landmark works with rich archival footage garnered over three decades.

Under Paris’ glittering Eiffel Tower, illegal Senegalese migrants sell miniature souvenirs of the monument to support their families back home. Far from their loved ones and hounded by the police, each day is a struggle through darkness in the City of Lights.

A powerful portrayal of poverty-stricken rural Lesotho and the expanding Chinese presence there.

This beautifully crafted and highly intelligent film explores the personal experience of a third-generation Holocaust survivor in Berlin. Remarkably honest and frank, the film asks fascinating questions, and is a great example of how the more specific an inquiry is, the more it can seem to generate a universal resonance.

Ennie, a single mother of five works as a maid for an elderly man in a village in Limpopo. She wants some sort of security for herself and younger children. Her only option is to marry into the family she works for, to a man whom no one would want their daughter to call husband.

A Feast in Time of Plague is a documentary that examines the artistic responses by state-funded theatre-makers to the apartheid state. Its focus is on those who worked in the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB) between 1970 and 1990.

A personal investigation into the mysterious life of the director’s Aunt Sally, an Ethiopian aristocrat-turned-communist-rebel who disappeared after the revolution that lead to the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie.

This powerful account of the war in Syria and the systematic destruction of Aleppo is told from the first-person perspective of journalist Waad al-Kateab, providing a rare cinematic account of the female experience of war. Taking the form of a love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film’s profound humanity gives it universal resonance.

Over the last decade, poaching across Africa has been rising like a bloody tide over the continent. This is the story of Rockwood’s rhinos and the men and women who protect them.

From Underground to the Corridors of Power, from director Teddy Mattera, provides a critical look at the formation of the National Union of Miners (NUM). Featuring interviews with key figures in the movement, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the film centres on the miners’ struggle for a living wage and better working conditions.

This beautifully rendered chronicle of day-to-day life in Gaza focuses on the lived reality in the besieged and violence-punctuated area. Directed with great compassion and exquisitely shot, the film never wavers from depicting the violence that punctuates the lives of those who live there even as it documents the richness of the culture that exists amidst the violence.

A young creative takes us on his journey, on how he and his team as independent artists are embracing their challenges and creating a voice through a promising innovative movement called Circles.

Good Hope documents the first generation of young South Africans to live in a free democracy, and the first to potentially fulfil Mandela’s vision of a rainbow nation, despite the fact that most of them are just a generation away from the extreme hardship and oppression of apartheid.

A filmmaker explores the mythology of the great-grandfather she never knew – along the way, reckoning with family bonds, intergenerational trauma, and her own hesitance toward telling the story.

Help or Hindrance? The Sullivan Principles in Apartheid South Africa tells the story of why African-American preacher and civil rights activist Reverend Leon Sullivan initiated the Principles a few years after joining the Board of General Motors, how this voluntary code mandating American subsidiaries to create equality in the work place and contribute towards ending apartheid was implemented and how their efforts were received in South Africa and viewed in the US, including the wide-ranging criticism they invoked both sides of the Atlantic

Sweden’s oldest co-living house has 300 residents, all of them women. A new generation have started to move in. A seemingly minor change that could distort – or revive – the house’s original purpose.

A journey into how investigative journalists uncovered the alleged corruption scandal surrounding former President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family.

This look at the old railway town of Hutchinson and its subsequent almost-complete deterioration and abandonment, as the country’s train system both modernized and diminished, provides a fascinating snapshot of small-town life during the apartheid era and transition to democracy. The result is an extraordinary narrative about the lives of ordinary people in a hollowed-out town.

A found-footage memoir

Exploring the dilemma of a young girl born and raised in South Africa whose parents come from Congo and Angola, and still has no place to call rightfully her home.

Il Mio Corpo tells the parallel stories of Oscar, a young working-class Sicilian boy who dreams of escaping the grip of his father, and Stanley, a Nigerian refugee who works as a farmhand in order to survive. Made with remarkable access to its subjects, Il Mio Corpo feels like a finely tuned drama.

This entertaining character-driven documentary follows hip-hop pioneer Enzo Tema on his quest for the resolution of his internal conflict with the fact that he used to be a musician who looked down on this unique genre of music but has since become a massive fan. Enzo takes a retrospective look at the genre and his new-found love thereof

Influence charts the recent advancements in weaponised communication by investigating the rise and fall of the world’s most notorious public relations and reputation-management firm, the British multinational Bell Pottinger. Influence illustrates how both the structures of our society and the very texture of our lives can be defined, designed and manipulated by powerful and secretive forces.

The subject of the film – an ageing baron named Ronald Busch Reisinger who claims to be Irish but is the very image of American excess – is vacuous and insecure. But that is very much the point in this beautifully rendered document of cruise-line luxury culture in which the facade of decadence is lifted to reveal its essential emptiness.

The Kingmaker provides an extraordinary look at the political career of Imelda Marcos, the former Philippines first lady who, together with her husband, reigned over the country with an iron fist while pillaging its wealth, and who continues to exercise remarkable influence in the current Duterte administration and its rule of terror.

This is a languid and beautifully made account of the lives of three families who live in the polluted Russian city of Magnitogorsk, home to the state-run Kombinat, one of the largest iron and steel factories in the country. Kombinat falls midway between the stories of Chekhov and Kafka, rendered in the medium of social-realist cinema.

Blurring the edges of the documentary genre, Lamentations of Judas is a contemporary retelling of the gospel of Luke, with the cast consisting of members of a community of black Angolan soldiers who once fought white South Africa’s colonial wars and now live displaced lives in the ruins of a former asbestos-mining town on the edge of the Kalahari.

When Karisa’s grandmother is accused of witchcraft, he travels from Mombasa to her rural home to find out who’s behind the threatening accusations. It turns out that the letter came from a member of his own family. As events progress, the film shows how this rural community’s values have been disrupted by the twin forces of colonialism and religion.

Through leaked voice notes, photos and videos, we are introduced to David, a Congolese deportee who has been detained at Lindela Repatriation Centre for over 120 days. Lindela Repatriation Centre is South Africa’s largest facility for the holding of un …

This lovingly made film explores the South African jazz scene of the 1950s and 1960s. Featuring interviews with some of the leading figures in the jazz scene, the film offers insights into a world that has now faded from view but whose cultural legacy lives on in some of the most vibrantly beautiful music ever to be recorded.

A rising club cyclist from Khayelitsha was forced to quit cycling when he had to leave the area for university, losing his bike in the process.

Madame is an emotionally powerful account of the relationship between Caroline, a flamboyant 90-year-old grandmother, and her gay filmmaker grandson Stéphane as they engage in an intimate conversation that takes place across time and space. Based on personal archive footage, this is a moving and highly engaging family saga that challenges the taboos of gender and sexuality.

A look into a local beauty pageant that celebrates forms of beauty that society labels as unconventional.

A filmed account of the stage version of Sindiwe Magona’s novel about the tragic killing of Amy Biehl during the pre-election violence of 1993, Mother to Mother explores the difficult channels of forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation from the perspective of the mothers of the killer and the victim.

This documentary portrays four generations of a family of drag queens in Brussels. As masculine features gradually soften under layers of makeup, as glasses are emptied, so the stories begin to flow. Tough subjects are approached, such as suicide, coming out and maternal love. Jokes fly, and the topic turns to the generational divide.

In this entertaining and humorous film, Ifeoma Fafunwa, AKA Mrs F, is a middle-class Nigerian woman who facilitates feminist workshops with women in a floating shanty town on the edge of Lagos, as they work towards a theatre production for the highly patriarchal local community about the abuse of women.

Sherwin hears it every day: “Someone got robbed; someone got stabbed.” This is the reality of growing up in Cape Town’s Lavender Hill. Sherwin’s life has been overcome with peer pressure, drugs and gangsterism. He was 12 years old when he got shot. His …

25 years after the transition to democracy, South Africa is the most economically unequal country in the world. This heartbreakingly insightful film consists of remarkably frank interviews with a full spectrum of South Africans, moving from the early days of liberation to a contemporary society in which the culture of resistance and protest is as strong as ever.

“This is a documentary about my mother and the moment that changed her life. Through her narration, my mother confesses to me what she remembers from the moment she was raped as a child.”- Tavo Ruiz.

Thirteen-year-old traditional horse racer Lubabalo Gibson dreams of carrying on his family legacy and becoming a professional jockey.

What if we proved that a persons’ name is the foundation to their pre-destination.  Would a rose smell as sweet if it was called skunk cabbage?  We follow two characters with unique stories that believe their names have a direct link to how their respective lives have turned out as they have. 

Muofhe explores the psychological circumstances of forgiveness after uncovering new truths about the murder of her uncle in 1998.

In 1996, DanceSport was one of the most popular leisure activities in South Africa, with the ‘Rumba in the Jungle’ event bringing dance couples from around the world to compete in the prestigious event. But, in 1999, the dance festival was cancelled. The film follows the journey of two dancers as ‘Rumba in the Jungle’ makes its resurgence nearly two decades later.

This film offers a creative exploration of the process of linguicide, through the director’s relationship with her grandparents, whose languages she has lost.

Sakawa takes a look at internet scamming in Ghana, where con artists cheat wealthy Westerners as a means of escaping poverty. As the film shows, it’s a relatively simple matter to open up discarded hard drives and gain access to photos and the personal details of their former owners. Equipped with a name and address, almost anybody can be found online…

SanDance! follows several indigenous San dance groups as they travel from remote Kalahari villages to the Kuru Dance Festival in Botswana, where their unique and spectacular dance performances are showcased. The result is a moving journey that explores the age-old trance-healing dance at the heart of San culture.

Ziyaad Samodien is a powerlifter who has face a lot of adversity during his time as a powerlifter and throughout his life.

What starts as seemingly disconnected visual poetry, very quickly turns toward the eerie. The collage of found footage creates scary foreshadowing of our future. She Breathes Water is a commentary on humans’ destruction of the environment at every leve …

Political activist Boniface ‘Softie’ Mwangi has long fought injustices in his country. Now he’s taking the next step by running for office in a regional Kenyan election. But running a clean campaign against corrupt opponents, with idealism as his only weapon, proves challenging – and Boniface soon discovers that confronting strong political dynasties poses a risk to his family’s safety.

Tin Soldiers tells the story of people afflicted with an extremely rare medical condition that slowly turns their connective tissue to bone. The resulting documentary is a compelling tale of courage in which these real-life ‘tin soldiers’ overcome their human frailty to show the spirit of resilience and survival, even within the most physically ravaged bodies.

Spanning the full length of Morrison’s life and prolific career, Pieces I Am examines her works and the powerful themes she has explored through her writing. With Morrison’s charisma and brilliance at its centre, the film explores her career as a novelist and editor as well as the history that has informed her writing.

Agnès Varda, who died in 2019, was a photographer, installation artist and pioneer of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This self-made film, produced just before her death, is filled with magic – and is a rare chance to see a major artist’s work from their own perspective.

Waking Stellenbosch, from Berlin-based filmmaker Sarah Marecek, who attended Stellenbosch University as a student, explores the traditionally Afrikaans campus in relation to the nationwide student protests which have rocked South Africa in recent years. The film explores the activism of the “born free” generation when confronted with an institution entrenched in a history of colonialism and Apartheid.

Weeks of Sand, Months of Ash, Years of Dust is a meditation on a past belonging to a young woman who spent her childhood growing up in Portugal and later relocated to Macao, China, a former Portuguese colony. She offers a Portuguese perspective on thes …

This is a short documentary about the power of dreams in providing guidance towards one’s accomplishment of purpose in their lives. It’s a story told through 5 artists in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This is a story about friendship, tolerance, social, humanity and love. Two friends who are professional dancers are on a journey to create a theater piece production that explores dance and poetry.

Stories women climate activists in the DRC, Uganda and South Africa, who face off against the corporate interests behind coal, oil and mega-infrastructure projects that threaten the lives of their communities and the planet.

Cindy Burstein and Anula Shetty create a powerful compendium of stories lived and told by women belonging to the inspirational Women’s Mobile Museum (WMM), a concept developed by iconic South African artist, Zanele Muholi. Eleven videos are featured in …

A documentary in which we explore online dating in the black community of Cape Town South Africa.

A sonic portrait of a Mexican village focused on architecture and public space, ( ( ( ( ( /* ) ) ) ) ) is a sensory ethnography of culture and communication in a community founded by volcano refugees.

In the time of COVID-19, a small and isolated community is left vulnerable as it struggles to fight off an illegal mining cartel in their backyard.