Movie-Database: Movies

MINERS SHOT DOWN

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Credits

Name: MINERS SHOT DOWN

Country: Südafrika

Year of publication: 2014

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 85 Minuten

Direction: Desai, Rehad

Screenplay: Khanna, Anita

Editing: Boerema, Menno; van der Hammen, Reuben; Assaizky, Kerryn; Gill, Megan; Johannessen, Steen

Abstract

On 16 August 2012, the South African police shot 34 miners in a platinum mine in Marikana, in the country’s northeast. Memories of Sharpeville and Soweto, scenes of the bloodiest crimes of the apartheid regime, returned to the collective consciousness of the people. In his documentary film MINERS SHOT DOWN, director Rehad Desai reconstructs the chronology of events in Marikana. He edits film material from various sources, including police and military video footage, and calls into question the official version of how the conflict unfolded. In the process, it becomes clear why the work of the government-appointed committee investigating the massacre came to a halt. In today’s South Africa, Marikana stands as a symbol for the dissatisfaction of the black majority with their miserable living conditions, as well as for the cynically brutal response by corrupt ANC government representatives. Twenty years after the end of apartheid, thousands of people in South Africa are demanding political corrective action through strikes and protests.
The film was honoured at the International Human Rights Festival in Myanmar with the Aung San Suu Kyi Award as well as the Camera Justitia Award at the “Movies that Matter” festival in The Hague.