Witness to Apartheid | |
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Directed by | Sharon I. Sopher |
Written by | Peter Kinoy Sharon I. Sopher |
Produced by | Sharon I. Sopher |
Narrated by | Sharon I. Sopher |
Cinematography | Peter Tischhauser |
Edited by | Laurence Solomon |
Distributed by | California Newsreel |
Release date |
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Running time | 58 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Witness to Apartheid is a 1986 American documentary film directed by Sharon I. Sopher. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. [1] Written by Sopher and Peter Kinoy, the film also won a Cine Golden Eagle. Sopher also won an Emmy Award for its direction.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film about the Holocaust, directed by Claude Lanzmann. Over nine hours long and 11 years in the making, the film presents Lanzmann's interviews with survivors, witnesses and perpetrators during visits to German Holocaust sites across Poland, including extermination camps.
Daniel Isaac "Danny" Schechter was an American television producer, independent filmmaker, blogger, and media critic. He wrote and spoke about many issues including apartheid, civil rights, economics, foreign policy, journalistic control and ethics, and medicine. While attending the London School of Economics in the 1960s Schechter became an anti-apartheid activist and made trips to South Africa on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC). Later he would help musician Steven Van Zandt assemble other performers to form Artists United Against Apartheid who released the album Sun City in 1985. Schechter produced and directed six nonfiction films about Nelson Mandela from the time Mandela was a political prisoner to his election and service as President of South Africa.
Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony is a 2002 documentary film depicting the struggles of black South Africans against the injustices of Apartheid through the use of music. The film takes its name from the Zulu and Xhosa word amandla, which means power.
Chris Noonan is an Australian filmmaker and actor. He is best known for the family film Babe (1995), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Greg Marinovich is a Pulitzer-awarded South African photojournalist, filmmaker, photo editor, and member of the Bang-Bang Club.
Darrell James Roodt is a South African film director, screenwriter and producer. He is probably most well known for his 1992 film Sarafina! which starred actress Whoopi Goldberg. Also regarded as South Africa's most prolific film director, Roodt has worked with the late Patrick Swayze in Father Hood, James Earl Jones in Cry, the Beloved Country and Ice Cube in Dangerous Ground.
Peter Kinoy is an American documentary filmmaker and film editor. Four of his films were nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and When the Mountains Tremble won the award in 1984. State of Fear: The Truth about Terrorism, which he co-wrote and edited, won the 2006 Overseas Press Club Award for "Best Reporting in Any Medium on Latin America". He co-wrote the 1986 documentary Witness to Apartheid, which was nominated for an Academy Award, with Sharon I. Sopher, the film's producer and director.
Kara Patria Constantino David-Cancio is a Filipino journalist, host, professor, and educational administrator. She is known because of investigative and multi-awarded documentaries in i-Witness. These documentaries are "Bitay, “Selda Inosente”, "Buto't Balat", and Ambulansiyang de Paa.
Kirsten Johnson is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer. She is mostly known for her camera work on several well-known feature-length documentaries such as Citizenfour and The Oath. In 2016, she released Cameraperson, a film which consists of various pieces of footage from her decades of work all over the world as a documentary cinematographer. Directed by Johnson herself, Cameraperson went on to be praised for its handling of themes about documentary ethics interwoven with Johnson's personal reflection on her experiences.
Sarah Townsend, known professionally as Sarah McGuinness, is an Irish singer, composer, producer, director, and screenwriter.
The Out In Africa South African Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (OIA) is a gay and lesbian film festival launched in 1994 to celebrate the inclusion, in the South African Constitution, of the clause prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The Festival set out to address the lack of visibility of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex individuals (LGBTIs) in South African social and cultural life after decades of apartheid repression, to counter negative images of LGBTIs that prevail in traditional and religious communities, and to serve as a platform for discussion and debate about the situation of LGBTIs in a newly founded democracy.
Sing Your Song is a 2011 documentary that tells the story of Harry Belafonte. The film recounts his life and legacy, not only as a great entertainer, but as an important activist in the Civil Rights Movement.
Witness is the flagship documentary television program that airs on Al Jazeera English. The program showcases documentaries commissioned by independent filmmakers around the world. The films focus on stories that receive less international coverage and "people at the margins of society."
The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 is a 2008 documentary short film created to honor the 40th annual remembrance of the life and death of Martin Luther King Jr. Directed by Adam Pertofsky, the film received a 2008 Oscar nomination in the "Best Documentary Short Subject" Category at the 81st Academy Awards.
Searching for Sugar Man is a 2012 documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which had never achieved success in his home country of the United States, had become very popular in South Africa, although little was known about him there.
René Vautier was a French film director. His films, which were often controversial with French authorities, addressed many issues, such as the Algerian War, French colonialism in Africa, pollution, racism, women's rights, and apartheid in South Africa. Many were banned or condemned, and one caused him to go to prison for a year.
The Witness is a 2000 documentary film about animal rights directed by Jenny Stein. It was produced by James LaVeck. LaVeck and Stein's non-profit organization is Tribe of Heart.
Connie Field is an American film director known for her work in documentaries.