LIEUX/VENUES
> Rosebank Mall, Johannesburg: 01-12 octobre
> Maponya Mall, Soweto: 01-03 octobre
> The Bioscope, Johannesburg: 03-10 octobre
> Brooklyn Mall, Tshwane/Pretoria : 08-14 octobre
> Musgrave Mall, Duban : 15-21 octobre
> VA&A Waterfront, Cape Town : 26-31 octobre


WELCOME
It's been a long time since last year's festival and now, so much has happened in 2010 both locally and internationally. What has not changed is our commitment to deliver to our audience films that challenge us, that move us, that inspire us to think through and speak out. In the context of the present media landscape this festival and other initiatives which aim to widen democratic space remain critically important.

2010 has seen an unprecedented amount of high quality, independently made South African documentary films released. Perhaps due to the meltdown at the SABC, local filmmakers have been forced to turn to their own imagination and passion to find the stories they want to tell and make the films they want to make. Only time will tell whether this lateral expansion will be sustained but for the meantime audiences can look forward to a diverse feast of films.

2010 has also been a year where Africa has come into focus. The paucity of independent production on the continent has always made programming extremely difficult, but this year we had a bumper crop of documentary cinema from Africa submitted to the festival. We have chosen some of the most poignant of these stories. Enter the worlds of Kenya, Sudan, Nigeria, Egypt, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso to experience Africa in new and challenging ways.

On the festival front it been tremendously difficult as the recession has started to bite hard into the budgets of our financial supporters. As a consequence we have sadly had to drop the Cape Town leg and severely curtail our outreach activities. Our hope is that the National Lottery will renew their funding for 2011 and the two following years so as to secure the future of the festival. We call on all our supporters who are in a position to help effect support to communicate with us.

On behalf of the Festival Team and all our partners, we welcome you to the 8th Edition of the Tri- Continental Film Festival.

Festival Director
Rehad Desai


The 8th Annual Tri-Continental Film Festival

All logic dictates it should not have been possible to run an event of this size this year. Recession has bitten hard in to the budgets of our key supporters, namely the SABC and the Gauteng Film Commission, whom in turn have been forced to withdraw support for the festival. The demise of the public broadcaster, along with the growth of smaller less affluent channels, has resulted in a serious tightening of the screws on funding for documentary film, as well as fewer and fewer opportunities for the airing of pluralistic, diverse voices to mass audiences.

And all of this at a time when we need these voices more than ever. In a period where South Africans face the clawing back of social reforms and find themselves fighting to defend hard won democratic freedoms, the role of independent documentary film cannot be underestimated.

Perhaps this explains why 2010 has seen some urgent filmmaking in South Africa by a generation of talented filmmakers who have responded to the demise of traditional funding models with an array of independent films that are refreshing in their poignancy and desperately in search of serious platforms. It's one thing getting these films made, and another ensuring they are seen by as many people as possible. This is the role of festivals such as Tri-Continental, with its aim of showcasing beautifully crafted and meaningful films to mass audiences, while hosting forums for debate and film education. This way we keep open the channels of communication between audiences for film, civil society, the media and the state.

Films from South Africa include Andy Spitz's We Are Nowhere, an uncomfortable reminder that not enough has been done to address the causes of xenophobia and that the spark that lit the original flame still burns brightly; Arya Lalloo's Citizen X, an unflinching portrait of civil unrest in the New South Africa, recently crowned the most unequal society in the world; David Forbe's The Craddock Four, set in 1985, details one of Apartheid's murkiest and most controversial assassinations; Odette Geldenhuys' Here Be Dragons, tells the story of George Bizos, the man renowned for saving Nelson Mandela from the gallows, for the inquest into the death of Steve Biko and for more human rights cases than any other lawyer in South Africa; Rehad Desai's The Battle for Johannesburg, captures the changing face of Johannesburg while raising urgent questions about social investment, enduring poverty and alienated communities that refuse to live together.

The current tight economic environment has meant some tough decisions on the scope of the festival - a rolling back of outreach screenings, where films are taken to specific and hard to reach audiences. Thus the focus this year is one of getting audiences to cinemas to watch our films, films that shine a spotlight on a troubled world, and to take part in a series of debates hosted by our partners. In the fight against poverty, for human security and freedom, the effects of climate change can no longer be ignored. This year we team up with Greenpeace with a selection of films that highlight the inter-relationship between development, the environment and the survival of humanity itself.

Dirty Oil is a much anticipated feature documentary from Academy Award-Nominated director Leslie Iwerks and goes deep behind-the-scenes into the strip-mined world of Northern Alberta, Canada, where vast and toxic oil sands supply the US with the majority of its oil. The story is told through the eyes of scientists, Big-Oil officials, politicians, doctors, environmentalists and the aboriginal citizens directly affected by the largest industrial project on the planet today. Dirty Oil uncovers the emotional and irreversible toll this "Black goldrush" is talking on our planet.

Sweet Crude is a journey of multilayered revelation and ever-deepening questions. Beginning with a small group of peaceful, intelligent protestors taking a stand against the devastating effects of the operations of foreign oil corporations in the region. Their protest slowly morphs into something more violent and militant as lives and the environment are increasingly put at risk for profit. The film is a fascinating and urgent story about power gone corrupt, industry destroying without care for the consequences, the people left to deal with it all and a region on the verge of war.

The festival teams up with Human Rights Watch with a Kenyan/USA documentary, Good Fortune, that details the politics of international aid as it effects the lives to two Kenyan's, one in Nairobi, the other in the rural countryside. This gripping film shows how massive international efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa can undermine the very communities they aim to benefit.

A series of screenings this year will be dedicated to the fundamental democratic right of Freedom of Expression. These films include, An Independent Mind, a feature-length documentary that details increasing attacks on this cornerstone of democracy and the underpinning of any ‘free' society; and American Radical, featuring American academic Norman Finkelstein, son of holocaust survivors and an ardent critic of Israel and US Mid-East policy, a deeply polarizing figure whose struggles arise from core questions about freedom, identity and nationhood.

This year the festival partners the Goethe-Institut in hosting a series of film workshops, aimed at filmmakers and people in the industry.

Other film titles include

From Africa:
Afrikaaps
Afrikaner Afrikaan
Forest of Crocodiles
Driving with Fanon
Mugabe and the White African
White As Blood
A Place Without People
The Hillside Crowd
Sweet Crude
War Child
On The Other Side of Life
Surfing Soweto
Garbage Dreams
A Small Town Called Descent
Where Do I Stand?
Forgotten Gold
Comrade Goldberg
"Soweto sneezed…and then we caught the Fever"

From Asia and the Middle East:
Gaza on Air
Nero's Guests
The Red Chapel
Cowboys in India

From Latin America:
Altiplano
Our Disappeared
Beyond Ipanema