The 23rd edition of the Encounters SA International Documentary Film Festival goes online with a few select screenings in physical cinemas for yet another demonstration of the ingenious, medium-pushing power of documentary filmmakers to examine a variety of engaging and relevant issues. Here is a selection of the highlights.
Flee
Danish director Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s moving and empathetic film combines rare archive with animation to tell the fascinating and all too human story of a protagonist whose life story is one of tragedy, displacement and a lifelong search for identity in a world that’s been hostile to him for most of his life. Amin is an Afghan refugee, whose family was uprooted from their homeland during the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s and who made a long, difficult and often dangerous journey that eventually saw him in Denmark. As he prepares to marry his Danish husband, Amin opens up to the filmmakers about his story and the added challenges that his homosexuality posed to his already dangerous journey. The use of animation is a smart device that allows Rasmussen to convey Amin’s changing perceptions through his eyes as they were happening. It takes us into his psyche as his life is upturned through the chaotic consequences of the tumultuous events that swept him and his family up and set them on their often terrifying path to freedom. Winner of this year’s Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, it has three screenings at the Labia in Cape Town.
The Colonel’s Stray Dogs
Khalid Shamis’s documentary provides an intimate exploration of the relationship between the director and his father set against the political turmoil of 40 years of Libyan history. Ashir Shamis was an idealistic democratic activist whose dreams for his homeland were shattered by the ascension to power of Muammar Gaddafi. In exile in London for all of his son’s life, Ashir looks back on his history as a marked man and fierce opponent of Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime, while his son asks him the hard questions about the cost of this political struggle to his family. His father sees his homeland now through the lens of a long exile and the inescapable changes to its landscape and society by years of dictatorship.
President
The opening-night film of this year’s festival offers a quiet but devastating examination of the depressing, familiar realities that set in for the people of Zimbabwe shortly after the brief euphoria over the resignation of Robert Mugabe as president. Told through fly-on-the-wall, behind-the-scenes observation of the subsequent elections from inside the campaign of MDC candidate Nelson Chamisa, it’s a searing indictment of the corrupt manipulation of the much-touted free and fair elections by Zanu-PF and Mugabe successor Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The Mole Agent
Chilean director Maite Alberdi earned an Oscar nomination for this charming, witty and smart film that disguises its serious investigation under the cloak of a comedy spy adventure. When a sweet, 83-year-old man is recruited by a private investigator to go undercover in a local old-age home, the stage is set for a series of awkward but very human misadventures that shed necessary light on the reality of old-age care and the lives of those who experience it.
Max Richter’s Sleep
Using celebrated composer Max Richter’s eight-hour 2015 lullaby composition as a jump-off point, Natalie John’s film slowly and beautifully unravels its intriguing mix of biography, scientific inquiry and filmed performance to provide a provocative and visually exquisite meander. Taking in the performance, the reaction of audiences to the experience and interviews with Richter about his life and career, it’s a unique and hard-to-categorise film that stays with you long after its final notes.
The 23rd Encounters SA International Film Festival takes place online and in select cinemas from June 10–20. For more information visit www.encounters.co.za.
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