MyWeku

Three films to watch out for: Pumzi, Skin and Invictus

Pumzi

Pumzi, Kenya’s first science fiction film, imagines a dystopian future 35 years after water wars have torn the world apart. East African survivors of the ecological devastation remain locked away in contained communities, but a young woman in possession of a germinating seed struggles against the governing council to bring the plant to Earth’s ruined surface…(continue reading here)

Skin

Ten year-old Sandra is distinctly African looking. Her parents, Abraham and Sannie, are white Afrikaners, unaware of their black ancestry. They are shopkeepers in a remote area of the Eastern Transvaal and, despite Sandra’s mixed-race appearance, have lovingly brought her up as their ‘white’ little girl.

After being sent to boarding school, she is examined by State officials, reclassified as ‘Coloured’, and expelled from the school. Sandra’s parents are shocked, but Abraham fights through the courts to have the classification reversed. The story becomes an international scandal and media pressure forces the law to change, so that Sandra becomes officially ‘White’ again (continue reading here)

Invictus

The important thing, though, is that the remarkable true story behind Invictus is properly told, and with a gravity that makes all the stakes clear. When Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa in 1994, the country was still deeply divided over the wounds from apartheid, and even the white members of the Presidential staff were convinced that Mandela would fire them immediately in favor of blacks. Meanwhile the national rugby team the Springboks remained a symbol of the apartheid era, bearing the old South African flag’s color of green and gold and boasting just one black team member (continue reading here)