February 9, 2010 – Twenty years after Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison, near Paarl, a free man, the historical significance of that dramatic day in February 1990 is being remembered in a film festival in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The Free At Last Film Festival is being held in association with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and will run in Cape Town from Thursday, February 11, to Saturday, February 13, while a one-day event will take place in Johannesburg on the anniversary of Mr Mandela’s release, Thursday, February 11. The Film Festival will showcase some of the best films about Mr Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement.
“The Nelson Mandela Foundation is a very supportive partner. It makes sense for them to be on board. They have been very useful and we are very grateful they’re partnering with us,” said filmmaker Don Edkins, who initiated the project. “Ensuring Nelson Mandela’s release was a massive effort and the biggest human rights event of the last century. Documentary filmmaking is a very important way of remembering the real people and stories involved, and what it really did take. It also allows us to examine the issues we need to consider, to continue fighting for social justice.”
Screenings include a unique selection of works by renowned local and international filmmakers, as well as award-winning non-fiction films and raw footage from the day Mr Mandela emerged from prison.
Some of the films on offer were released as far back as 1994, when South Africa was taking its first, tentative democratic steps. The screenings will transport audiences back to that hot Sunday, on which the 27-and-a-half-year wait, for the release of the world’s most prominent political prisoner, finally ended.
Audiences will be reminded of the pain and sacrifices of the struggle, but also of the joy, the indomitable spirit, the victories and the humanity that characterised it.