Miners Shot Down – Film Screening, 5 Feb 2015

By Africa in Words on 21 January , 2015 • ( 0 )

Miners Shot Down – Film Screening

Djam Lecture Theatre, SOAS

Thursday 5 Feb, 7pm

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.

What emerges is collusion at the top, spiralling violence and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre. South Africa will never be the same again.

Watch the trailer

“This is a detailed, compelling, important and necessary film. An immensely powerful and tragic indictment of the ANC leadership, SA police and British mining firm, Lonmin. But as well as being a devastating exposé of the wholesale slaughter of scores of men it is a very moving celebration of the Marikana mineworkers, their dignity and their struggle in their search for a living wage.” (Beeban Kidron, UK Filmmaker)

This screening is part of South Africa at 20: The Freedom Tour, a collaboration between the five African film festivals in the UK – Cambridge African Film Festival, Film Africa in London, Afrika Eye in Bristol, Watch-Africa in Wales, and Africa in Motion in Scotland. It has been taking the best of South African cinema to locations across the UK since October 2014 and will culminate in April 2015, in celebration of 20 years of democracy and freedom. The tour will host a total of 120 screenings throughout the season in 40 different locations.

All welcome, rsvp to cas@soas.ac.uk