The first Fordsburg Film Festival will take place at the last surviving independent bioscope, the Majestic, over Heritage Day weekend of 23-25 September 2011, as partner of the 2011 Joburg Arts Alive International Festival.
Presented by The Fietas Festival, a community heritage reclamation project, and The Bioscope, the independent cinema initiative located in downtown Johannesburg, the festival is part of the dynamic and unfolding narrative of reconnection, rejuvenation and remaking of the historic Fordsburg locality.
While Fordsburg's other bioscopes have since been converted to other commercial uses, the Majestic, the largest of its old bioscopes, survives in structure.
Two screening programmes a day are to be hosted, matinees and evenings, with the Sunday programme on the 25th catering for screenings at 10am and a 5pm Indian film show, just as in days of old.
In its selection of titles, including documentary and fiction, the festival will speak to the history of Fordsburg, its historical peoples and characters and its recent immigrant experience, including the livelihoods of restaurants, barbers and tailors in Fordsburg today.
Movies
Fordsburg: Memoirs of Injustice (12'), by student filmmaker Zwelethu Radebe, bearing testimony to a Fordsburg of old (Fri 23 Sept, 2pm and 7pm)
Laskar Pelangi (125'), an ethnic Malay film on the struggle for education in a poor village, which is also revealing of the Indonesian ancestry of South Africa's Malay people (Fri 23 Sept, 3pm)
Waiting for Valdez (24'), the short film by Teddy Mattera and Dumisani Phakathi that tells of memory and loss in Newclare, in a time of a strong cinema going culture and just before forced removal to Eldorado Park. (Fri 23 Sept, 7.30pm)
Eldorado (90'), by first time filmmakers Shaldon and Lorreal Ferris, is a gritty profile of the township of Eldorado Park township told through the story of a gang that meets a tragic end (Fri 23 Sept, 8pm)
The show must go on. Inshallah (12'), the back stage vignette by Feizel Mamdoo of Saheed Rasool, aka Shaky Russel, the local Elvis Presley tribute performer who began his early career performing at the Majestic (Sat 24 Sept, 2pm)
Come Back, Africa (83'). Featuring the likes of Miriam Makeba, Lewis Nkosi and Bloke Modisane, this is a rare film that records the famed Sophiatown in the 1950s (Sat 24 Sept, 2.30pm).
A Chip of Glass Ruby, written by Nadine Gordimer and directed by Ross Devenish, tells of the contradictory responses and consequences to family of an Indian South African woman's political activism in the 1970s, against the backdrop of real time images of the forced removals in Fietas, Fordsburg and Newtown at the time. This is a rare copy of a Channel 4 broadcast (Sat 24 Sept, 7pm)
The Imam and I (80'), Khalid Shamis' interrogation of the legacy of his legendary grandfather, Imam Haroon, who was killed in detention in the 1970s (Sat 24 Sept, 8pm)
Billu Barber (150') tells the story of a humble Indian barber who is disbelieved by his community when he claims to know a Bollywood superstar on location in his village as a childhood friend. The film provoked protests by barbers in India for its representation of them and their craft and will be keenly discussed by a panel that represents Fordsburg's barbers, waiters and tailors (Sunday 25 Sept, 10am)
Other Europe (75'), by Rosella Schillaci, relates to the immigrant experience of Fordsburg's East African community in this tale of Somali, Sudanese and Ethiopian refugees in Turin, Italy (Sunday 25 Sept 12.30pm).
Vanaja (111') is an art house Telegu film scheduled for the classic Sunday 5 'o clock Indian show. It tells the story of a poor 15 year old girl whose strategies to free her from her class status and fulfil her aspiration to be a dancer leads instead to class bondage and loss. Mamathu Bhukya in the central role will enthral lovers of Indian classical dance and its related mythology (Sunday 25 Sept 5pm)The screenings are part of a rolling screening programme and will be followed by discussions that feature past and present day personalities of Fordsburg.
