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Screening&Concert Screening A thirst that even water cannot quench… a groan that has no sound.” A freedom fighter’s description of nostalgia for home haunts this testament to the filmmaker’s late father. New York director Harris has delivered an affecting paean to Benjamin Pule ‘Lee’ Leinaeng, one of the first MK cadres. Lee was one of a group of activists called The Bloemfontein 12 who effectively became outlaws when they ritually burned passbooks and began, in 1960, a 300-mile journey on foot, through Botswana to Tanzania, then to Sudan, West Africa and into ANC cells around the world. Harris first meets his imposing father in the Bronx when his mother, Rudean, marries Lee. From a child’s perspective, he captures the personal heartaches and undying belief of warriors on an Odyssean mission to free South Africa, that some thought might take five or six years but actually stole over thirty years of their lives. The Foreigner ‘The Foreigner’ is a 17-minute film about the relationship between an immigrant street vendor and a homeless child and is a chilling and gripping indictment of xenophobia, the fear of foreigners. The story traces the relationship between the foreigner Koffi (played by Ivorian musician Koffi Kouakou Gervais) and the little boy Vusi (played by newcomer Bafana Matuta), that develops and grows despite the hostility and aggression directed at the foreigner amidst the bustle and hustle of street trade. Shot on location in Hillbrow, in the heart of a city deserted by white capital, and perceived to be the Sodom and Gamorrah of the new South Africa, the film deals with both the humanity of friendship, and the brutality of xenophobic hatred. With attacks on black foreigners have become increasingly deadly and brutal, xenophobia has moved into the media spotlight. Concert |
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