Miners Shot Down
Completed 2014
Director
Rehad Desai
Doc Society helped with
Impact
Runtime: 83 minutes
Follow the film
In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the POV of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down, follows the strike from day one. What emerges is collusion at the top, spiraling violence and the country’s first post-colonial massacre. South Africa will never be the same again.
Long Synopsis:
In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. The police insisted that they shot in self-defence.
Miners Shot Down tells a different story, one that unfolds in real time over seven days, like a ticking time bomb. The film weaves together the central point-of-view of three strike leaders, Mambush, Tholakele and Mzoxolo, with compelling police footage, TV archive material and interviews with lawyers representing the miners in the ensuing commission of inquiry into the massacre. What emerges is a tragedy that arises out of the deep fault lines in South Africa’s nascent democracy, of enduring poverty and a twenty year old, unfulfilled promise of a better life for all. A powerful and disturbing film, beautifully shot, sensitively told and featuring a haunting soundtrack, Miners Shot Down points to how far the African National Congress has strayed from its progressive liberationist roots and leaves audiences with an uncomfortable view of those that profit from minerals in the global South.
Outreach Work Supported
Early partnership work the Marikana Justice Campaign.
Crew
Rehad Desai
Director
Rehad Desai is one of South Africa’s best-known documentary filmmakers and the CEO of a Uhuru Productions. A former political exile, Rehad worked as a trade union organiser and as a Director of a HIV prevention NGO before entering the film and television industry as a current affairs journalist. He has a Masters in Social History and post-graduate degree in TV and film producing (AVEA) and a post-graduate diploma in documentary (Eurodoc). Rehad has directed over twenty documentaries, many of which have seen international broadcast and been accepted into numerous festivals, receiving critical acclaim. His current project, Miners Shot Down, is a synthesis of Rehad’s skills as a filmmaker and experience as an activist.
About Production Company/Producers:
Uhuru Productions has been making social justice films in southern Africa for 11 years, since the beginning of 2003. It has produced over twenty high-quality documentaries for local and international audiences.
Headed by acclaimed producer/director Rehad Desai, the company has a wealth of expertise in the production and management of current affairs programming, documentaries, drama and non-broadcast productions in South Africa and Southern Africa. Uhuru has also acted as an implementing partner of the renowned Tri Continental Film Festival since its inception in 2003, and the People to People International Documentary Conference, since 2007.
Beyond the film production expertise, Uhuru Productions has extensive experience working with communities at a very grassroots level in using film as a catalyst for social change. This puts us in a unique position to run a very successful outreach project as we fully understand the power of film to motivate for change but are also able to engage with communities so that the film gets seen by large numbers of people.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Miners-Shot-Down
Twitter @minersshotdown
