Reel Lives Mini Documentary Festival
5 short documentary films around personal, human-rights-related narratives. Shot and edited by new film makers: 5 young people living on the fringes of society, who are often spoken about, but rarely heard from.
Marginalized young adults are facing a number of challenges aside from technical and vocational skills. Reel Lives programming supports our participants in engaging with their own lives through media-arts, creating a form of informal, group art-therapy. Our graduate Abdul put it best when he said “You make a film about the thing you’re most afraid of, and it takes away it’s power.”
Our young filmmakers collectively grapple with their own lives in a supportive and nurturing community, and learn from one another’s experiences. It is not an overstatement to say that our educational programming is uniquely transformative, and graduates see the world, and their place in it, in a very different light.
Dark Shadows by Inga Sikweyiya
ImortileLenja (This Dog is Dead) by XolaMteto
EBATELI YA MOTEMA NA NGAY (The Beat of my Heart) by Krys Malondez
The invisibles by Terence Makapan
Rues de mémoireperdue (Streets of Lost Memories) by Jazz Lohaka
Inga Sikweyiya, Dark Shadows
Inga Sikweyiya is an art enthusiast who lives for storytelling through acting and filmmaking. As a proud Xhosa artist, he is passionate about telling stories from the village.With more than 17 million people in South Africa currently dealing with mental illness, a large number of undiagnosed cases exist silently in black communities. This film recounts the events leading up to his near suicide attempt and discovering his battle with depression. It follows his journey as he goes back home to speak about his mental condition, for the first time.
Xola Mteto, ImortileLenja (This Dog is Dead)
Xola Mteto currently resides in Khayelitsha though he’s originally from Engcobo in the Eastern Cape. He joined a gang at the age of 16 as a means of survival. He enjoyed the status that came with being a gangster but after a fight with a rival gang, in which he was stabbed 14 times, he’d lose all his respect in one day. In his documentary he’ll give us a re-telling of the story and how that fateful day helped turn his life around.
Jazz Lohaka, Rues de mémoireperdue (Streets of Lost Memories) Jazz, originally from Kinshasha in DRC, moved to South Africa in hopes of a better future. With Xenophobia popping its head out every few ears, Jazz and many other immigrants like him had to face tremendous obstacles – Home Affairs being one of the biggest. In this film, he will expose how the South African Home Affairs is responsible making thousands of legal immigrants become illegal immigrants.
Audience Responses
It ess excellent and very emotional