SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: Selected for this year’s Tri
Continental Human Rights festival, South African documentary Parole
Camp features the journey of troubled youths from the Cape Flats and their
participation in the Realistic Prisoner Reintegration Programme. Directed by Maanda
Ntsandeni, the film was shot over two years between 2013 and 2014, and exposes
the dilemma parolees face in reintegrating with their families and society.
Ntsandeni felt compelled to tell this story after a close friend was released from
prison and, struggling to find acceptance from his community and peers, committed
suicide. When he read in the newspaper about Solomon Madikane, who runs the
rehabilitation programme and camp aimed at keeping the youth in Cape Town out of
prison, he attended a few sessions and went on to produce the film. “I understood
there and there that crime not only affects victims, but also the family members of
the accused,’ says Ntsandeni.
Parolees which attend the camp, situated in Ncamakwe, Eastern Cape, are given
physical fitness training, spiritual guidance and emotional support. Many are
involved in crime, gangs, drugs and alcoholism and have a number of psychological
issues to work through. “I was with those parolees throughout the whole camp,’
comments Ntsandeni. “It was a very emotional process, and we had to be very
strong to be able to get through it. I mean just hearing the kind of things those
young people had done was shocking. I’m talking about kids who have bullets
lodged in their arms, some as young as thirteen. But what disarmed me completely
was when they asked this boy what he would miss about the camp, and he just
said: ‘the food and the bed, because at home, I go to sleep on an empty stomach,
and there is no bed’. That shattered me.’
Ntsandeni believes that the absence of proper rehabilitation programmes in local
prisons is creating serious problems for South Africa. Communities are prejudice
against parolees and want to see them perpetually punished, regardless of whether
they have served their term or not. “It is no secret, our communities are broken,
and young people have no one to look up to, and we have become a materialistic
society where the flaunting of wealth and cars have become a common place and
education and the principles of Ubuntu are no longer important. I wanted us to have
a conversation and ask ourselves pressing questions, what kind of society are we
that cannot forgive? My experience with those young people in Realistic has
completely changed me and I believe we need more programmes like Realistic in
this country,’ he remarks.
Working with Ntsandeni on his feature film debut were DOP Siyabonga Jim, sound
designer Vukile Zuma and editors Patrick Mukandi and Inka Sodinda.
