The Cape Winelands Film Festival returns to its Stellenbosch roots tonight. In its fourth year, the festival takes place in one of the prettiest little towns in South Africa.
The festivals opens with Michael Henry Wilson’s documentary Reconciliation: Mandela’s Miracle. Completed last year, it details the strategy South Africans take for granted, but which the rest of the world saw and still sees as Mandela’s miracle: the events overseen by Nelson Mandela that shepherded our country in a peaceful transition from apartheid to a democracy.
It is driven by the notion that even the most terrible tyranny can be overcome through reconciliation, as both the oppressed and the oppressors need to be liberated from the vice-grip of prejudice and injustice.
The film was judged best documentary at last year’s Hollywood Film Festival and won a Global Impact Award at the Conscious Life Film Festival in Los Angeles this year.
Festival director Leon van der Merwe said they decided on the theme of reconciliation because it is a concept worth exploring in contemporary South African society.
“The films we have in the line-up regarding reconciliation were a fluke except for Turkish film Kosmos and Greek film Homeland which we watched because of their themes. The rest were unsourced and unsolicited,” explained Van Der Merwe.
They’ve managed to pick up Distell as a sponsor in kind. Through the alcohol producer/marketer, the festival now has access to the Oude Libertas venue for premieres.
Irma Albers, arts and culture controller of the development programmes at Distell, said they’re doing this to expose the community to something they might not get chance to see under normal circumstances – in this case, films beyond the normal skop, skiet en donder playing at the local cinema.
“Also, it’s about getting people to a place they’ve not experienced before, so they can realise people also go to the theatre,” said Albers.
Van Der Merwe said it was difficult to pitch a film festival at a particular audience in this country because the potential market is so diverse. Instead, they’re focusing on the diversity of good movies available, and hoping to attract people interested in watching excellent films.
He’s also sure they’ll attract people interested in African films since they have seven feature films on offer, as well as three local feature films and 13 local documentaries.
There are also never-before-seen-in-this-country films from Japan (Kinboku and Akira Kirosawa’s Madadayo) and Finland (Princess).
“The whole point is to bring the audience in the Western Cape the films we are missing out on on the commercial circuit. Cinema Nouveau has become a haven for glorified blockbusters, despite Ster-Kinekor maintaining that they are fulfilling the idea that what they screen at Cinema Nouveau is art.
“We don’t want to label what we’re screening as just art, but ‘more serious in content’ film,” said Van Der Merwe.
He’s watched all of the films and struggles to highlight some of the 38 feature films above the rest, but says he’s very happy about getting Slovakian film, The Legend of the Flying Cyprian and 2010 Egyptian film Microphone, which tells a story eerily similar to the events that recently played out in the country.
Then there’s Do Elephants Pray, a small English film about a straight-laced advertising executive whose life is thrown into disarray when he meets a free-spirited woman.
He’s also quite keen on documentary The World According to Ion B, about artist Ion Barladeanu who was living on the street when he was discovered making artworks out of recycled waste.
There’s also a masters section, with lectures on the work of cinematic legends, in addition to screenings of some of their best work. The lectures take place from 7.30pm at the Neelsie.
Tuesday, March 22, John van Zyl: The Man who Shot Liberty Valance is a film in which Ford deftly creates a structuralist opposition between the book and the gun, the male and the female, myth and history, Eastern values and frontier individualism.
Wednesday, March 23, Hannes van Zyl: Renoir as a film director who redefined the language of film and influenced generations of film-makers, with special attention to The Rules of the Game (La Règle du Jeu).
Thursday, March 24, Dr Lesley Marx: Orson Welles, maverick genius interpreting American dreams and nightmares with a focus on Citizen Kane.
Friday, March 25, Dr Martin Botha: Auteurial self-consciousness in the cinema of Frederico Fellini, with special reference to Roma.
For those who can’t make it out to the winelands, short films will be screened at the CityVarsity campus on Kloof Street while the rest of the films will be screened at the Neelsie and 5 Ryneveld (restaurant/lounge/bar cinema, 5 Ryneveld Street in the heart of Stellenbosch).
The festival runs from today until March 26. See http://films-for-africa.co.za/
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