Photo: Courtesy Niklas Zimmer ©
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Remember: ALL Entrance is FREE - No booking required.
Films at the Labia are R25, bookings: 021 424 5927
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Special Treat
Before the screening of 'Mandela: Son of Africa Father of a Nation' at Maponya Mall - 11 February 8pm the renowned South African photographer Dr Peter Magubane will present a picture show of mostly un-published photographs taken during the first three weeks after Mandela's release.
Dr Peter Magubane is an internationally acclaimed photographer whose work has been published and exhibited all over the world. He embarked on his long and distinguished career in 1954, when he joined Drum magazine. This took Magubane and his camera to the heart of the anti-apartheid defiance campaigns and treason trials. After the Drum years, Peter Magubane travelled and exhibited in Europe, and spent time studying in the United States. Back home, in 1966, Magubane joined the Rand Daily Mail. In 1969, he was detained for 586 day in solitary confinement, and after this, he was banned as a photographer for five years. He returned to his work in time to bear witness to the uprising of young school children that began on June 16, 1976. From the late 1980’s, Peter Magubane worked for Time Magazine. With his camera, he recorded the culmination of the struggle for liberation in South Africa. The dramatic images of this history are published in several of his books. Books such as his June 16 1976 Fruit of Fear, and his first book of photographs accompanied by poems written by a young Zindzi Mandela, Black as I am, were banned in South Africa.
For his dedication and outstanding contribution to the world of photography, Peter Magubane has received numerous accolades, among them: the Mother Jones-Leica Lifetime Achievement Award; Martin Luther King Luthuli Award; Fellowship by the Tom Hopkinson School of Journalism and Cultural Studies; Honorary Doctorates from UNISA; Tshwane University of Technology; Rhodes University; and the University of Fort Hare. Peter Magubane was the first black South African to receive an award for his photography in 1958, when he received 1st and 3rd prizes in the South Africa Best Picture of the Year Contest. On receiving the Order for Meritorious Service from Former President Nelson Mandela in 1999, President Mandela said: “ For his bravery and courage during the dark days of apartheid, Peter became a beacon of hope not only to the thousands of journalists all over the world but also to millions of people across our country. His commitment to photojournalism helped pave the way to transformation in South Africa, and such efforts are, needless to say, worthy of international recognition.”
Particularly in post-apartheid South Africa, Peter Magubane focuses his lens on the people and cultures that live within South Africa. This period has been a cultural rebirth for many South Africans, with a renewed interest in reviving their traditions. Peter Magubane has a number of books published reflecting the beauty, traditions and cultural practises of South Africans. These include: Vanishing Cultures of South Africa; African Renaissance; Bantwane – Africa’s Undiscovered People; and AmaNdebele.
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Festival Opens with School Screenings at The Labia:
Thursday 11 February at 12 pm - Heideveld Secondary School
Friday 12 February at 12 pm - Kensington High School
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'Mandela: Son of Africa Father of Nation'
Maponya Mall Screening - SOLD OUT!!!
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'Fair Play' Screening at the Labia - FULLY BOOKED!!!
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Confirmed Guest Speaker: Professor Denis Goldberg
'Accused No.1 - Nelson Mandela' at Alliance Française,
19:00 - Saturday 13 February
Denis Goldberg in Germany, photo courtesy: Don Edkins
We are honoured to have Professor Denis Goldberg, Accused No 3 Rivonia Trial, one of our festival patrons, who prominently features in Pascal Lamche’s “Accused No 1”, discuss the film after the screening on 13 February 2010 at the Alliance Française.
Denis is a former political prisoner who served 22 years in jail, raconteur extraordinaire whose autobiography will be published in April this year.
He grew up in an intellectual family and from a young age, became aware of national as well as international politics. He joined the Modern Youth Society in 1953 while at the University of Cape Town, studying engineering.
In the early 1950’s he joined the Congress of Democrats and the Communist Party underground. Once the ANC embarked on an armed struggle, Goldberg continued to be an activist and joined Umkhonto we Sizwe as technical officer in the early 1960’s. He was advised to leave the country but instead became the weapons maker for “Operation Mayibuye” and subsequently arrested in 1963.
After serving 22 years, he was set free in 1985 and was reunited with his family in London where he continued to work for the ANC.
Here are extracts of an interview Mardi Gray conducted with Denis for the Nordic Africa Institute based in Uppsala, Sweden, five years ago.
The full interview is available here.
Madi Gray: Denis, how did you personally become involved in the struggle for liberation?
Denis Goldberg: My parents were of the communist left. By the age of six I knew about surplus value, I knew about the poverty of workers in general, but black workers in particular in South Africa, the mixture of national oppression, exploitation and unemployment.
I grew up during World War 2. I was reading the news headlines whilst sitting on my father's lap when I was six years old, so I knew about the Nazi invasions of Europe and the Soviet Union, of the war in Far East and I knew the significance of it. I couldn't have told you about Kristallnacht, but I knew about the events and I knew about concentration camps. All of this was part of my background.
I also remember when I was aged about ten, a group of us were coming home from school one day, and we saw a man who in South African parlance was coloured, running to catch a train. He was running so fast. Add to the story that our fourth grade teacher was the Western Province half-mile champion. His nickname was Tinkie, because he was quite little. Somebody said, “Look at that man run. He's faster than Tinkie!” Another ten year old said, “He can't be faster than Tinkie, Tinkie is the half mile champion”. A third, and I wish I could remember his name, said, “But he can't run against Tinkie, because he's coloured.” There we were, ten years old and we knew these things.
In 1943 I knew about the Battle of Tobruk, the Battle of El Alamein, the Battle for Stalingrad, all of this. My schoolbook said, “South Africa is a democracy”,” which means that all grown-ups can vote in the elections and if a political party loses, it loses power. I went home and said, “It says all adults vote, but only whites vote”.” My parents didn't say, like most others would, “Shush, shush, those are grown up things.” They said I was right. The book was wrong and what it said was not true. We knew about it, and the reason I'm stressing this is that still today whites say they didn't know what happened. Here [very recently] General Malan, the Commanding Officer in Namibia said he didn't know what happened when they found mass graves in Namibia. He had nothing to do with anything like that.
...
Madi Gray: At some time you slid from defiance to sabotage and your life changed?
Denis Goldberg: [That was when I joined Umkhonto we Sizwe.] Then when the 90 Day Act came into effect in 1962, my comrades of the Communist Party and other organizations assured me I would be among the first arrested, because I was known as Mr Technico in our movement, and the police would want me. Even if I didn't break, somebody would under the 90 Day Law, which was designed for the police to extract information by whatever means they could. It was thought that I would certainly get a minimum of ten years in prison. I was urged to leave the country, but to go via Johannesburg to get cleared by the Umkhonto High Command and leave the country. As a disciplined person that’s what I did. I went to Johannesburg by train under a pseudonym and the High Command asked me to stay and be the weapons maker for the High Command for Operation Mayibuye. Joe Slovo met me and was my contact there.
I agreed to stay, because I had left Cape Town because I couldn't be politically effective there any more. I could build bridges, roads and power stations, but couldn't blow them up again!
I bought a smallholding called Travallyn Agricultural Holdings in the Krugersdorp municipality for us to live on. It was a fairly isolated smallholding and we could use it disguising ourselves as a small farmer and his labourers. The Liliesleaf place in Rivonia was known to be dangerous as too many people had been there. We went back once too often, for one final meeting, and got caught. That showed how dangerous it was. Apparently the Security Police were only expecting Walter Sisulu to be there and they caught the lot of us. They were over the moon. And so it was that six weeks after I got to Joburg, we got caught.
Madi Gray: Was it that quick?
Denis Goldberg: It happened quickly.
Madi Gray: It was a fluke, catching everyone, wasn't it?
Denis Goldberg: I think so. Nicholas Wolpe is running the Liliesleaf Project today and is turning it into a heritage project. He's come a long way and done wonderful work. Their historian has dug up stuff in the archives, partly in the British archives. British Intelligence knew who was there. A caravan was parked nearby and we always suspected it was the South African Police, but it wasn't.
Madi Gray: It was the British?
Denis Goldberg: Yes, we were quite convinced that they used to take a drive every morning to see who was at this place and to take photographs.
Madi Gray: In July 1963 you were arrested?
Denis Goldberg: I was arrested on 11 July 1963 and on June 12th 1964 we were sentenced at the end of the Rivonia Trial. Like most of us I was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment.
Madi Gray: Four terms, for four different things?
Denis Goldberg: Yes, four charges. Life imprisonment for each and they run together. Four separate charges. For example, you buy a vehicle and you get convicted for that contribution to your conspiracy, but handling money to buy it is another charge. We were charged with conspiracy to overthrow the State by force of arms, with preparing to receive an army of invasion, our own ANC people, and I was charged in effect for buying a Volkswagen Kombi, into which I had curtains fitted so that nobody could see Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Ray Mhlaba and Wilton Mkwayi from Port Elizabeth. We could drive around and nobody could see in. Madi, never buy a Volkswagen Kombi. They’ll put you in prison for 22 years.
Madi Gray: You were in for 22 years?
Denis Goldberg: Yes, from the time of my arrest. I came out in 1985 and started travelling the world speaking for the ANC. That was the task I was given. I'd flown to Lusaka and met with Oliver Tambo and members of the National Executive who were there. I was introduced to the world media by the ANC and Thabo Mbeki chaired that press conference. A veteran struggle hero is back, he's working with us, was the attitude. I went to London to live with my family and it was very nice to have a family again.
Madi Gray: What did you do?
Denis Goldberg: I worked in the ANC office and my task was to travel and talk, because you use the political platform you've got, the white comrade who had been 22 years in prison. People would ask, “Why are you a white involved in the struggle of black people?” and I would say, “I'm involved in the struggle for all people. I want my children to grow up without having to worry about these things.”
Once in California, at the university of Berkeley, at a Martin Luther King Junior chapter, I was invited to give a talk, this hero from South Africa. I got to the meeting and nobody spoke to me. I felt the attitude was “What’s this honky doing here?” Then I gave my talk and told them about our struggle and where we were at, and I was careful not to talk about these poor suffering blacks, which was very common amongst the older black ANC exiles in America, jerking the heartstrings. What I spoke about was a confident movement that was on the way to seizing power, these were the comrades I knew. Somebody asked questions, “What are you doing, a white man in a black struggle?” and somebody else said, “You did this for us and we thank you”.” I said, “I did it for me and my children, I didn't want to live a lie and I don't want them to live a lie”.” No matter what I said, I had to be doing it for them. I said, “Of course I am, but I'm trying to explain to you it's much deeper than that”.” It was quite difficult.
The full interview is available here.
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Confirmed Guest Speaker: Bill Frankel
'White Lies' at Iziko SA National Gallery, 18:00 - Saturday 13 Feb
Bill and his wife Carol
Bill Frankel will be the the Q&A guest, he writes a bit about himself below...
"I was born in SA and went to UCT and studied law there between 1962 and 1964 when I had to leave SA somewhat hurriedly because I had become politically involved and had been tipped off that I was about to be detained. I eventually arrived in London in Dec 1965 and at the beginning of 1966 joined a law firm in London called Birkbeck Montagus. When IDAF was banned by the SA Govt early in 1966 Canon Collins needed to find ways and means of continuing the work of IDAF of funding the legal costs of the political trials in SA and providing financial assistance to the dependants of political detainees. That is when I first became involved through one of my colleagues in my law firm. A secret system of dummy trusts(suggested by Neville Rubin) was established and using a clandestine system we managed to transfer funds into SA for close on 25 years until Madiba was released. We had the support of over 50 Govts around the world and there must have been over GBP150 Million pounds sterling that was transferred into SA secretly using the secret methodology that is recorded in the film. Most of these funds went through my firm’s client account. The reason for the success is that very few people were aware of the nature of the operation and identity of those involved. Throughout that 25 year period I was known as Mr X and no one other than Canon Collins, Phyllis Altman and subsequently Horst Kleinschmidt (when he took over from Phyllis as general secretary of IDAF) knew of my involvement and identity. What we achieved is quite remarkable and the film and eponymous book tell part of the story. IDAF probably funded over 95% of all political trials involving literally thousands of trials and tens of thousands of activists. We managed to save many people from the gallows, often managed to reduce prison sentences, highlighted the acts of torture and murder at inquests we funded and generally gave support and hope to so many activists and their families.
IDAF was unbanned by the SA Govt at the time of the unbanning of the ANC and other political parties and the announcement that Madiba and some other political prisoners were to be released. Since then I have played an active part in primarily educational charities in SA and sit on the boards in the UK of charities established by three major SA Universities and also by the SA Constitutional Court. I also chair a substantial SA grant making charity whose principal area of activity is postdoctoral fellowships in the sciences and which is increasingly involved in human rights work and last year established a new chair in Constitutional Governance at UCT."
Please find more background information on IDAF here.
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Confirmed Guest Speaker - Opening Night: Terry Bell
The FREE AT LAST Film Festival is delighted to have Terry Bell lead a Q&A session after the screening of 'Fair Play' on opening night, 11 February 2010 - Labia Cinema, Orange Street 8:30pm.
Please find a short bio of an exciting and eventful life below...
Journalist, author, broadcaster. A former 90-day detainee, editor of UK Anti-Apartheid News, banned for 24 years and in exile for 27 (Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, Britain, New Zealand) campaigning to isolate apartheid. Sent by OR Tambo and Jack Simons from Zambia to New Zealand in 1971 to help start an anti-apartheid movement with a focus on sport, especially rugby.
Keynote speaker at launch of New Zealand Anti-Apartheid Movement in 1972. Trained, with New Zealand activists, by Quaker militant George Lakey as an instructor in non-violent direct action tactics that were used, both with apartheid tours and with the waterborne Peace Squadron that blockaded visiting nuclear warships. Designed hardboard “protest shields” used in New Zealand. Arrested for paint bombing US nuclear submarine, Haddo.
Left New Zealand in 1979 to start primary division of ANC school for exiles in Tanzania, convinced that New Zealand prime minister Robert Muldoon would not be stupid enough to invite another apartheid tour. Returned to South Africa via the United Kingdom in December 1991.
Spot Oliver Tambo... Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO), Mazimbu in Tanzania
