Excretapolitics (2024)

Africa Rising

How African artists have spread African culture all over the world, especially music, since the harsh years of decolonization, trying to offer a nicer portrait of this amazing continent, historically known for tragic subjects, such as slavery, famine, war and political chaos.

Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony

The struggle to eradicate apartheid in South Africa has been chronicled over time, but no one has addressed the vital role music plays in this challenge. This documentary by Lee Hirsch recounts a fascinating and little-known part of South Africa's political history through archival footage, interviews and, of course, several mesmerizing musical performances.

Gaza Fights for Freedom

Gaza Fights for Freedom depicts the ongoing Great March of Return protests in the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, that began in 2018.

A Matter of Life and Death: History of Hygiene

Hygienic habits are as old as the various human civilizations; but each era establishes its own customs: whether private or public, everywhere and at all times, methods of personal cleanliness have depended on cultural conventions, religious morals, political ideologies and economic interests; because the control of basic hygiene has also been and is one more tool in the infinite exercise of power over the masses.

The 16th Man

Rugby Union has long been viewed in South Africa as a game for the white population, and the country’s success in the sport has been a true source of Afrikaner pride. When the 50-year-old policies and entrenched injustices of apartheid were finally overthrown in 1994, Nelson Mandela’s new government began rebuilding a nation badly in need of racial unity. So the world was watching when South Africa played host to the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Though they had only one non-white player, the South African Springboks gained supporters of all colors as they made an improbable run into the final match where they beat the heavily favored New Zealand team. When Mandela himself marched to the center of the pitch cloaked in a Springbok jersey and shook hands with the captain of the South African team, two nations became one. Oscar winner Morgan Freeman and director Cliff Bestall will tell the emotional story of that cornerstone moment and what it meant to South Africa’s healing process.

Born Free - Filhos da Revolução

Plot unavailable

The State Against Mandela and the Others

South Africa, July 11th, 1963. Several members of the African National Congress, an organization declared illegal, are arrested in Rivonia, a country house near Johannesburg. The detainees, along with Nelson Mandela, imprisoned since 1962, are charged with serious crimes for their radical activism against the apartheid regime.

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

More than 60,000 of Ernest Cole’s 35mm film negatives were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Most considered these forever lost, especially the thousands of pictures he shot in the U.S. Told through Cole’s own writings, the stories of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film is a reintroduction of a pivotal Black artist to a new generation and will unravel the mystery of his missing negatives.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld

Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (currently Zambia), September 18, 1961. Swedish economist and diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the UN, dies mysteriously in a plane crash. Decades later, Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Brügger and Swedish researcher Göran Björkdahl investigate the case in search of definitive closure.

Concerning Violence

Concerning Violence is based on newly discovered, powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

On ne naît pas féministe

Discovering your womanhood at 33 when you're a feminist is like exploring a new continent as an adventurer. It sparks a desire to embark on a journey, to understand the world around us, to search for ourselves, over and over again. To engage in the new sexual revolution and trace the roots of sexism and gender, questioning whether sexual education in France can prevent future generations from the patriarchy. But are we ready to deconstruct everything?

Stop The Tour

Stop The Tour discovers the extraordinary story of how sport helped bring an end to Apartheid which paved the way towards the multi racial 2019 Springbok champions.

The Fall

The Fall tells the remarkable story of a South African barefoot runner, an American track-and-field prodigy, and the events behind one of the most memorable moments in sporting history – the 1984 LA Olympics. The film charts two journeys, from rural South Africa under apartheid and the rolling hills of Southern California, to the starting line of the women’s 3,000 metres. It uncovers a tale of betrayal and exploitation, of the blurred lines between politics, media and sport, and of the dedication and sacrifice required to compete at the highest level. It’s a story that split governments and divided nations, but at its heart is a tale of two young women who, despite the turmoil in their lives, just wanted to run.

I'm Khoisan, not Coloured

During his stay in Cape Town as a film student, Shatho Tibone was inspired by an initial casual trip he took to the scenic but informal settlement of Hangberg. This film focuses on the uncertainties and inhumane acts of police and state brutality faced by the predominantly Rastafarian, KhoiSan identifying community of Hangberg in Cape Town, South Africa. So, through the participatory collective effort of a few journalists, filmmaker and community leaders Shatho went on a 5 year journey to document the story of this community which has become an enigma in South African imagination,

Namibia: The Story of a German Colony

Germans colonized the land of Namibia, in southern Africa, during a brief period of time, from 1840 to the end of the World War I. The story of the so-called German South West Africa (1884-1915) is hideous; a hidden and silenced account of looting and genocide.

London Recruits

The story of the Londoners recruited to be freedom fighters during the South African apartheid during the 1960s.

No Māori Allowed

When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their personal stories before, confront its deep and dark racist past.

The Great Wall

‘The Great Wall has been completed at its most southerly point.’ So begins Kafka’s short story ‘At the Building of the Great Wall of China’, and so, at Europe’s heavily militarised south-eastern frontier, begins this film. In the shadow of its own narratives of freedom, Europe has been quietly building its own great wall. Like its famous Chinese precursor, this wall has been piecemeal in construction, diverse in form and dubious in utility. Gradually cohering across the continent, this system of enclosure and exclusion is urged upon a populace seemingly willing to accept its necessity and to contribute to its building.

Scars

We admire beauty; we recoil from bodies that are marred, disfigured, different. Didier Cros’ moving, intimate film forces us to question what underlies our notions of beauty as we join a talented photographer taking stunning portraits of several people with profound visible scars which have dictated certain elements of their lives but have not come to define their humanity. The subjects' perceptions of themselves are dynamic, unexpected, and even heartwarming. This is an unforgettable journey to be shared with the world.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.

Moffie

A young man in 1981 South Africa must complete his brutal and racist two years of compulsory military service while desperately maintaining the secrecy of his homosexuality.

Remember the Titans

After leading his football team to 15 winning seasons, coach Bill Yoast is demoted and replaced by Herman Boone – tough, opinionated and as different from the beloved Yoast as he could be. The two men learn to overcome their differences and turn a group of hostile young men into champions.

Disgrace

Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter. After having an affair with a student, he moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.

Cry Freedom

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Goodbye Bafana

The true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.

Catch a Fire

The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.

Gandhi

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

In My Country

An American reporter and an Afrikaans poet meet and fall in love while covering South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.

The Power of One

PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.

Red Dust

Sarah Barcant, a lawyer in New York City who grew up in South Africa, returns to her childhood dwelling place to intercede for Alex Mpondo, a Black South African politician who was tortured during apartheid.

Invictus

Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby union team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Kalushi: The Story of Solomon Mahlangu

Solomon Mahlangu is a Mamelodi township schoolboy-hawker who, after the events of June 16th joins the military wing of the ANC to fight against the brutal oppression of the Apartheid regime and ends up becoming an icon of South Africa's liberation.

Sarafina!

The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The stage version presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the school girl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when a policeman shoots several pupils in a classroom. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of act two. In the movie version Sarafina feels shame at her mother's (played by Miriam Makeba in the film) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.

Cry, the Beloved Country

A South-African preacher goes to search for his wayward son who has committed a crime in the big city.

Escape from Pretoria

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.