Miners Shot Down is the latest offering from renowned South African documentary filmmaker, Rehad Desai. The film has won the Camera Justitia Award at the Movies that Matter Festival 2014 which took place from 20 to 26 March in The Hague in The Netherlands.
The award follows an earlier accolade attained at the international human rights documentary film festival, One World, which took place from 3 to 12 March in Prague in the Czech Republic where the film was awarded The Vaclav Havel Jury Award.
The documentary reconstructs the events surrounding the Marikana miners’ strike in August 2012, when police came up against workers from the British Lonmin mine who were conducting a peaceful strike for higher wages.
Unique footage of the seven days leading up to the fatal event which shook South Africa and made international headlines is included in the film. Emotional and moving, the documentary is a tribute to the courage and resilience of people who used their fundamental rights to stand up for themselves.
Desai accepted the award and said: “Winning the Camera Justitia Award will mean a lot to the tens of widows and to the hundreds of miners who still face charges. It is critically important for the campaign for justice that those charges are dropped, that the police are prosecuted.’
An initiative by Amnesty International, the Movies that Matter Festival is focused on human rights and social justice and the Camera Justitia section highlights the importance of justice and the issues which surround it. Made possible by the Dutch vfonds the Camera Justitia programme features eight relevant films along with a number of master classes and debates.
Rehad Desai has had key participation at the festival, and has played an influential role in driving discussion around the issues presented in the film. Desai gave a master class on filmmaking as part of the ESoDoc training programme and took part in the jury of the other competition programme at the festival, A Matter of ACT.
He has taken part in debates with experts on trade unions, culture and politics in present-day South Africa and shared his thoughts on global economic inequality as part of a panel featured on a talk show.
