Following the historic legal win for Cape Town's housing justice movement, the award-winning documentary Mother City will celebrate this victory with public screenings at The Bioscope Independent Cinema in Johannesburg and at The Labia Theatre in Cape Town on 28 July.
The screenings follow the landmark Constitutional Court ruling handed down on 2 July 2026, that the sale of the former Tafelberg School site in Sea Point was unlawful. This reaffirms the constitutional obligation of both the Western Cape Government and the City of Cape Town to actively address apartheid's spatial legacy through well-located affordable housing and, crucially, ordered the Western Cape government to report back to the same court on the steps taken to fulfil its housing obligation. The judgement is a watershed moment for spatial justice, recognising that where people live is inseparable from their access to work, education, healthcare and dignity.
Mandisa Shandu at the High Court win after judgement passed by Judge Gamble in 2020
Through the voices of Reclaim the City activists and the Ndifuna Ukwazi legal centre, documents a decade-long struggle for the right to live in the city. What began as a documentary about resistance has become a powerful record of a movement whose vision has now been affirmed by South Africa's highest court.
Directed by Miki Redelinghuys and Pearlie Joubert, Mother City follows Reclaim the City activists and Capetonians struggling to find housing over six years, tracing the fight to use well-located public land, including the mothballed Tafelberg site and Woodstock Hospital, for affordable housing rather than private developments. The Tafelberg case has anchored the film's impact campaign since the project began, with the filmmakers describing it as the goal that could "set a very strong precedent for prioritising public land for social and affordable housing" nationally.
Nkosikhona Swartbooi in discussion at cinema screening at the Labia Theatre, Cape Town
The Mother City team took the courageous and difficult step of self-distributing the film to create the impact they set out to make. Since its international premiere at Sheffield DocFest in June 2024, the film has screened 175 times across 36 countries (an average of more than seven public screenings a month) over 63 film festivals, 46 independent cinema runs, 41 grassroots impact screenings and 21 academic engagements. It has been subtitled into Spanish, Portuguese and French, and is now also available on the KINEMA streaming platform, and plans are for a South African cinema release in September.
The film’s mobilisation intensified around the Tafelberg hearing, and screenings have since gone on to mobilise housing and tenant movements as far afield as London, Berlin, Bogotá, Mexico City, Budapest, Lagos and Belgrade.
Mother City Filmmakers at Encounters South African International Documentary Festival
"We always believed this film could do more than tell a story, we believed it could support the fight for access to housing in the City and in other urban centres around the world, facing similar struggles," says director Miki Redelinghuys.
Pearlie Joubert reflects "Seeing the Constitutional Court confirm what the Reclaim the City activists have argued for a decade is an joyous vindication, for all South Africans, for everyone who has opened their doors, their communities and their courtrooms to Mother City along the way."
The Constitutional Court ruling states: “A city’s architecture tells a story of its soul. In Cape Town, as in most, if not all South African Cities, that story remains one of division, where the echoes of apartheid spatial planning continue to reverberate through its streets and suburbs.”
Mother City reveals in carefully observed detail the violent impact of these divisions, while celebrating the people who tirelessly work to build a more just society.
Screenings Tuesday, 28 July at The Labia Theatre in Cape Town and The Bioscope Independent Cinema in Johannesburg followed by a discussion. Tickets can be booked here https://www.mothercitydocumentary.com/watch.
