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Desai Rehad , director. Miners Shot Down . 2014. English, Xhosa, Zulu, and Fanakalo, with English subtitles. 86 minutes. South Africa. Icarus Films. $398.00.
FILM REVIEWS
DOCUMENTARIES
Documentary film played an important role in recording the atrocities of apartheid, capturing the resistance movement, and mobilizing support against apartheid. Within South Africa a radical documentary film movement emerged, which captured ordinary people taking on the oppressive regime. People were shown at work and in their communities organizing labor strikes, protesting apartheid, and being subjected to violence. This grassroots movement has been described as an example of Third Cinema, since it served as a tool to educate and inform, as well as to document violence and inequity and encourage action.
Now, two decades after the end of apartheid, a similar set of documentaries has begun to crop up, but these films are holding the democratically elected government accountable. The production quality of these films is higher than those produced under apartheid, but they still give voice to the disenfranchised masses, in this case, those for whom the multiracial democracy has not brought substantial change, especially in terms of economic equality. Rehad Desai's 2014 documentary Miners Shot Down is one such film. Desai follows the 2012 wildcat strikes at Lonmin, a British-owned platinum mine located...