It has been screened at 76 film festivals in 39 countries and won 19 awards - and most recently an Emmy nomination for best documentary worldwide. But in South Africa, no free-to-air TV station is prepared to air the documentary film Miners Shot Down.story_article_left1Filmmaker Rehad Desai was in the field this week when he got the call to say his story of the Marikana massacre had been nominated for an Emmy. He was directing shots for the second in a trilogy of films about the failures of the liberation movement in South Africa."It's quite an honour. Hopefully it'll get thousands more eyeballs to see the film." It's a film he believes is mandatory viewing for South Africans.Desai is unashamedly an activist and continues to promote his film worldwide. Many view it with a sense of disbelief, shaking their heads at how much the liberation movement has failed the working class in a country that once was a poster child for democracy.For others the experience is even worse. "You come out with a clear impression that there was a plan behind this and in many ways that makes it worse than the Sharpeville massacre," says Desai.Such unresolved aspects of the event are part of the reason Desai and others have campaigned so strongly for the film to be shown on public TV in South Africa.After widows of the Marikana victims protested outside its Auckland Park headquarters last year, the SABC said there was no record of the film being offered for broadcasting and that there was uncertainty over who held the licence.To which Desai responds: "It's a complete lie. Most of my big projects are co-produced with the SABC. Their formal decision was that they wanted to see what the Farlam commission would say."E.tv would also not broadcast the film. "E.tv told me they have similar stock [they could show]. Then they turned around and said they couldn't find commercial terms with the producer."After the massacre on August 16 2012, the narrative taking root and being reflected by official sources in the media was that workers had been out of control and police had been compelled to fire on them."It became very clear there was a counternarrative that needed to be told. And film is a particularly powerful tool in building the counternarrative," says Desai.With public TV access barred, he adopted guerrilla tactics to have his film seen, putting up screenings in townships, schools, universities, churches and town halls countrywide.Desai scoffs at journalism's infatuation with objectivity in the face of facts that are flagrantly clear and calls for storytelling that offers a definitive point of view. And so in his documentary the story is told from the viewpoint of the striking mineworkers in the run-up to that historic day.mini_story_image_hleft1This week, outside the Anglo Coal mine in eMalahleni, where Desai and his crew are working on their follow-up film, they are pursuing fairly innocuous shots of the signage, coal trucks rumbling by and the mining operation in the distance.It's not long before two burly men in khakis show up in a mine bakkie. This is a fairly common occurrence, notes Desai. The crew are questioned and warned they are not allowed to film the shaft head in the distance or anything else related to the mine. Desai steps forward and in his calm, distinctly British accent explains that their filming is entirely legal. The mine security men back off.It's a far cry from Desai the rabble-rouser who grew up in north London and, through numerous scraps, earned himself the nickname "Hardy". Even harder for the filmmaker has been emerging from the shadow of his prominent activist father, Barney Desai.The Desai family were forced into exile from Cape Town in 1964, with Desai spending most of his formative years in the UK. He accompanied his father as among the first exiles to return, shortly before Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990.Keen to help build the democracy for which his family had sacrificed so much, Desai first became a trade union activist in a fledgling Cosatu. Then, in 2002, he picked up a camera.Desai's films that precede Miners Shot Down reveal not only the evolving South African social and political landscape but also a storyteller honing his craft. From his introspective Born Into Struggle about his family, to an investigation into pharmaceutical companies' exploitation of San communities, and later still an analysis of the 1906 Bambatha revolt , Desai's work as a filmmaker is deeply rooted in history and giving voice to the marginalised."You need to have a level of political astuteness and take into consideration where mainstream thought is at," he says.For the Marikana film he employed a narrative "show don't tell" approach, fighting the inclination towards creative licence."The only footage that works in that structure of film is what happened on that day. It's all a very intricate tapestry that we have to weave together."You have to allow for people to connect the dots themselves and in doing that, you give the audience an opportunity to own the information," he says.Putting together stories and films is often a painful, time-consuming process involving the writing of endless proposals and applications for funding.With events constantly evolving, Desai has to tackle the time-bound project on the fly, confident that others will come on board along the way.mini_story_image_hright2"The processes happening in the world are often more dramatic in the global south because there's so much more at stake," he says.For Desai, Marikana marks a pivotal moment in South Africa's democratic history, when the collusion between the government, trade unions and industry, all at the expense of the working class, was shown up.It's a universal message that has helped garner the nod for the Emmy Awards."Usually the Emmys are very Americentric, but here you have an international panel of judges, so it's quite an honour. It's also in the timing, with rising inequality that parallels the rising power of corporations, and people are really feeling the brunt of the recession," he says.In a South African context Desai makes it clear that he stands on the side of those who battle against exploitative capitalism, a fight to change the lot of cheap, disposable black workers. The Emmy nod, he hopes, will attract a wider audience to focus on the documentary and possibly encourage a rethink by South African TV stations. More importantly, he hopes it will further the cause for justice for those killed in the worst mass killing in post-apartheid South Africa.In a country where rabid acts of violence and injustice appear to linger for only a short while in the minds of its shock-weary people, Desai insists on being a persistent conscience to the nation.Three years down the line, with no one brought to book for the killings, nothing much has changed from the song the miners sang on the day before the police shootings: "The wind is blowing, we are left out in the cold."The SABC and e.tv did not respond to requests for comment...