ARTicles vol. 3 i.1b: South African Festival

PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PRESENTS: Themes of Foreign AidsInternational responsibilities in the face of the AIDS pandemic, and the challenges of stigma, discrimination and the right to health. Panel will include Pieter-Dirk Uys (creator and performer of Foreign Aids) and Dr. Joia Mukherjee, Medical Director of Partners In Health and an adviser to PHR’s Health Action AIDS campaign. PHR’s executive director, Leonard S. Rubenstein, will moderate. January 10, 2005 at 7:30 pm– Zero Arrow Theatre – free and open to the public Truth, Justice and Healing in South Africa Ten Years After Speakers include actor/playwright John Kani (creator and performer of Nothing But The Truth), Heeten Kalan, a leader of the South Africa Development Fund and Free South Africa (FreeSA) who grew up under apartheid, continued campaigning while studying and working in the US, and has since returned to meet with and interview leaders in the struggle; and Dr. Jack Geiger, past president of PHR. January 17, 2005 at 7:30 pm– Zero Arrow Theatre – free and open to the public Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) promotes health by protecting human rights and acts on the conviction that human rights are essential preconditions for the health and well-being of all people. PHR uses medical and scientific methods to investigate and expose violations of human rights worldwide and works to stop them. Since its founding in Boston in 1986, PHR researchers have conducted investigations in dozens of countries, including the United States, and the organization has mobilized hundreds of health professionals in human rights advocacy. In 2002 PHR launched a campaign to combat global AIDS: Health Actions AIDS. As one of the original steering committee members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE RISA CHARITABLE TRUST PRESENTS:A Conversation with the Reverend Mpho TutuReverend Tutu will be speaking on the first ten years of democracy in South Africa reflecting on, among other things, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was headed by her father, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu. The Reverend Mpho Tutu was ordained to the priesthood in January 2004. She is currently clergy resident at Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia. There she participates in a range of community service programs, in addition to performing extensive liturgical duties. She also continues to dedicate time and energy to bettering South Africa by, among other things, serving on the Board of Directors of the Reinvest South Africa (RISA) Charitable Trust. January 14, 2005 at 5:00 pm – Zero Arrow Theatre – free and open to the public The RISA Charitable Trust seeks to alleviate poverty and unemployment in South Africa by supporting the development and sustainability of the small business sector in low-income communities and among women. RISA implements its mission by providing investments and capacity building grants to small businesses that are creating jobs and economic empowerment in South Africa’s poorest communities.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE A.R.T. PRESENTS: African Renaissance – NOTE VENUE CHANGE: NOW AT LOEB DRAMA CENTERAn evening of readings, lectures and performances. Panelists to include Pamela Allara, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art at Brandeis University and renowned South African author and playwright Zakes Mda, author of The Madonna of Excelsior, The Heart of Redness, Ways of Dying,and When People Play People: Development Communication through Theatre. His some 30 plays include And the Girls in their Sunday Dressesand Fools, Bells and the Habit of Eating.* Moderated by Mark Sanders, Professor of Literature, Brandeis University. Since 1994, a new generation has been documenting and stylizing life in post-liberation South Africa. Where the most vital art of the previous era celebrated the resistance to the apartheid regime and the dignity of ordinary people in distress, South African art ten years later embodies the extravagance and ambivalence of the country’s multicultural present. President Thabo Mbecki’s call for an African Renaissance has provoked myriad responses, and this evening of performance seeks to showcase just some of the recent work of these great artists. January 24, 2005 at 7:30 pm – Loeb Drama Center – free and open to the public*Zakes Mda’s participation is co-sponsored by the Committee on African Studies at Harvard University.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ THE HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE PRESENTS: Ten Years After: Contemporary South African CinemaJanuary 14-19, 2005 at the Harvard Film Archive (see calendar & descriptions) $8 Regular Admission, $6 for A.R.T. ticket holders, students, Harvard faculty & staff, senior citizens The Harvard Film Archive is located at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, in Cambridge, Massachusetts see details below or go to the HFA calendar Ten years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, a group of new cinematic visionaries have emerged in the country. Not content to settle for the work of outsiders representing their struggle on film, South Africans have begun to find their own voice. This new voice comes largely through documentary works which reflect on the ever-growing crises of crime and AIDS, but also films which celebrate the country’s unique and influential music. Special thanks to Paul Stopforth, Ceridwen Dovey, Lindiwe Dovey, California Newsreel, and the Ten Years of Freedom Festival. Program notes adapted from the Ten Years of Freedom Festival. January 14 (Friday) 7:00 pm Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony Directed by Lee HirschUSA 2002, 35mm, color, 108 min. English, Zulu, Xhosa, and Afrikaans with English subtitles The power of song to communicate, motivate, console, unite and, ultimately, beget change lies at the heart of Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, winner of the Audience Award and Freedom of Expression Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Amandla! celebrates the freedom music that sustained and galvanized black South Africans through more than forty years of struggle against racist white rule. It is an expressive portrait of South African life, a chronicle of the country’s struggle, and most of all, a love song to its music, featuring inspiring performances by Vusi Mahlasela, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, and others. January 14 (Friday) 9:00 pm January 16 (Sunday) 7:00 pm Karoo Kitaar Blues Directed by Liza KeySouth Africa 2003, video, color, 90 min. English and Afrikaans with English subtitles In the tradition of Buena Vista Social Club, Karoo Kitaar Blues is a rousing documentary about a group of wildly talented but utterly isolated musicians who eventually come to tour South Africa to rapturous crowds. In the Karoo, a spare and desolate swath of South Africa, tobacco farms, cattle ranches, and bare plains dominate a landscape populated by white landowners and poor, Afrikaans-speaking, “colored” farm workers. In their isolation, these workers evolved a unique musical style played on homemade instruments. In this film, part music documentary and part road movie, musician David Kramer seeks out the Karoo’s hidden artists, offering a rare glimpse into a distant social and musical world. January 15 (Saturday) 7:00 pm Hijack Stories Directed by Oliver SchmitzSouth Africa/Germany/France/UK 2001, 35mm, color, 95 min. With Tony Kgoroge, Raoulana Seiphemo, Percy Matsemela English and Sotho with English subtitles In this stylish drama that explores the boundaries between life and art, Sox Moraka is a young actor from a middle-class black family living with his white girlfriend in a slick Johannesburg apartment. He has a nice smile and appears in feel-good commercials on television, but he is bored. His shot at the big time comes with a chance to audition for the role of a gangster in a popular television series. Unable to relate to the character, Sox ventures back into Soweto to connect with Zama, a childhood friend turned leader of a carjack gang. As Sox is drawn into violence and machismo, Zama navigates his life with ever increasing artifice until one wonders who is the actor and who is the criminal. January 15 (Saturday) 9:00 pm January 17 (Monday) 9:00 pm Cage of Dreams Directed by Clifford Bestall and Pearlie JoubertSouth Africa 2001, video, color, 55 min. The Cage Unlocked Directed by Clifford BestallSouth Africa 2002, video, color, 55 min. In the South African prison system, the lives of the inmates are dominated by the rule of the Numbers gang, a highly organized yet ruthless cadre who will stop at nothing to retain their self-imposed order. Produced for the BBC, Cage of Dreams goes inside the walls of the prison to expose the lives of the enforcers of this often merciless code. The inmates’ lives seem beyond rehabilitation, but an innovative effort by the Centre for Conflict Resolution helps the men take account for years of shame and brutality in their own lives. The Cage Unlocked provides an intriguing follow-up on two former leaders of the Numbers gang as they attempt to become reintegrated in society following their release from prison. January 16 (Sunday) 9:00 pm January 17 (Monday) 7:00 pm The Guguletu Seven Directed by Lindy WilsonSouth Africa 2001, video, color, 83 min. English and Xhosa with English subtitles On March 3, 1986, apartheid police murdered seven young black men they accused of being terrorists. Ten years later, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, charged with setting the record straight about South Africa’s past, re-opened the case. The Guguletu Seven tells the story of how TRC investigators foiled desperate, last-ditch attempts at a cover-up to reveal a shocking story of high-level complicity, silence, and brutality. Remarkably, the discoveries are hailed as part of the nation’s healing process and desire for reconciliation. This searing documentary is at once a nail-biting, real-life murder mystery and a searching exploration of what it means to face the past. January 18 (Tuesday) 7 pm January 19 (Wednesday) 7 pm State of Denial Directed by Elaine EpsteinSouth Africa 2002, video, color, 86 min. In this searing indictment of responses by the pharmaceutical companies and the South African government to the AIDS pandemic, producer/director Elaine Epstein, a native South African who has worked extensively in AIDS and public health, offers a unique insider’s view of the complex forces driving the disease’s spread – and the debate around it – in South Africa. State of Denial gives moving testimony to the harsh realities of the AIDS epidemic, global healthcare inequities, and the political and economic interests that are denying millions of people around the world access to life-saving therapies. Ask Me I’m Positive Directed by by Teboho EdkinsSouth Africa 2004, video, color, 48 min. Thabo, Thabiso, and Moalusi are young, urban Basotho men on a mission. They travel with a mobile cinema unit through the mountains of Lesotho, screening their film to very remote communities. In a country where almost a third of the people are HIV-positive, they are the nucleus of a tiny group who are living openly with the virus. They are pioneers and publicly declare their HIV–positive status. They are also film stars and are attractive to women. The three young men open up in a way seldom seen on screen, and this film gets to the heart of their lives and dilemmas. All screenings at the Harvard Film Archive, located at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one block north of Massachusetts Avenue between Broadway and Harvard Street in the Harvard University campus. Founded in 1957, the archive preserves rare and valuable film from deterioration. In recent years, the HFA has focused on works from the international and independent cinemas, as well as showing classic film from around the world.