South African Feature God’s Work Selected for Joburg Film Festival

God’s Work, the uncompromising South African feature directed by Michael James, has been selected to screen at the 8th edition of the Joburg Film Festival on Sunday, 8 March at 16:15 at Artistry in Sandton.

Set within an abandoned inner-city building, God’s Work confronts homelessness not as abstraction, but as lived economic exclusion. Hunger, addiction, fractured memory and systemic neglect shape the interior and exterior worlds of men pushed beyond society’s margins. Stark social realities collide with surreal psychological landscapes, creating a film that resists easy categorisation.

Still from the film God’s Work

The film embraces a hybrid cinematic language — blending documentary textures, staged encounters, archival material and symbolic imagery — to question how cinema frames lives that exist outside systems of access and visibility.

“South Africa’s deepening social fractures are no longer peripheral,” says Producer Sithabile Mkhize. “People are being steadily removed from opportunity, recognition and support. God’s Work offers a direct encounter with these realities.”

Director Michael James describes the film as an act of bearing witness:
“This film is ultimately an exercise in empathy. Cinema allows us to dismantle distance — to attempt to see one another without mediation or judgment.”

Still from the film God’s Work

Early responses have described God’s Work as “a film that does not ask for sympathy but demands reckoning” and “a powerful confrontation with the human cost of inequality.”

The film features emotionally grounded performances from South African talents Thobani Nzuza, Mbulelo Radebe, Omega Ncube, Siya Xaba, Zenzo Msomi and Nduduzo Kholwa. Cinematography by Jared Hinde captures the textured physicality of the setting, while George Acogny’s haunting score deepens the psychological and emotional tension of the narrative.

God’s Work is produced by Maverick Entertainment, Amafrika Films and Mojo Entertainment, with support from the KZN Film and Tourism Authority, the Durban Film Office and the National Film and Television Foundation.

Producers: Sithabile Mkhize
Executive Producers: Toni Monty, Gary Springer
Co-Producer: Marco Orsini

God’s Work screens Sunday, 8 March at 16:15 at Artistry, 22 Fredman Drive, Sandown, Sandton.
Tickets: webtickets.co.za
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1072745582?fl=pl&fe=sh

SA documentary that has touched a nerve – picked up by international festival

Mother City, the hard-hitting South African documentary about the politics of urbanism premiered internationally at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival, and at the prestigious Encounters South African International Documentary Festival where it played to sold out houses. Since then, it has been in demand by audiences and festivals eager to engage with its content throughout the country and abroad.

The film received special mentions from the juries at both these festivals, and was shown to a packed audience of industry peers at the recent Durban FilmMart.

It had a special screening at the CineCentre GrandWest, Cape Town on 30 August followed by a robust panel discussion hosted by Daily Maverick journalist, Rebecca Davis with Disha Govender, Head of Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre; Nkosikhona Swartbooi, activist; Brett Herron, former Mayco Member for Housing, City of Cape Town, and Anthea Houston, CEO of Communicare.  

The London Renters Union, a campaigning union with branches across the UK, requested a special for the opening of their Housing Justice Assembly 2024 in London on 30 August.

Given the dire housing and land needs a robust impact campaign is created by the film makers and activists seeking various opportunities to screen the film to a wide and diverse audience in order to trigger discussion.

Where to see Mother City,  next:

In Cape Town a short season will follow at The Labia Theatre in Cape Town on Sunday 8 September, 2.30pm and from Friday 13 to Thursday 19 September 8pm.

Johannesburg public screenings take place at the CineCentre Killarney Mall from Wednesday 18 September at 19:00 with a special screening with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation with Daily Maverick’s Ferial Hafajee hosting a post screening panel discussion.

It will screen at CineCentre on Friday 4 October at 7.30pm, Saturday 5 October at 5.15pm and Sunday 6 October at 2.30pm.

International screenings and festivals include:

●      Sheffield: The Showroom Cinema in Sheffield 28 October

●      London: Bertha DocHouse in London requested to screen Mother City  29 October 

●      Namibia at the Film Week in Windhoek

●      In Germany, at Afrika Film Festival Köln, 

●      and in Switzerland and USA in the next four months.

Seasoned impact filmmaker Miki Redelinghuys of Plexus Films and veteran investigative journalist Pearlie Joubert, directed and produced the film with renowned feature-producer Kethiwe Ngcobo. Described as a beautifully observed, deeply human and often heart-breaking look at the politics of urbanism, the filmmakers spend six years documenting the activists of the dynamic Reclaim the City movement, as they transform two mothballed state-owned buildings in Cape Town’s into homes for more than 1000 people.  The Woodstock Hospital was renamed Cissy Gool House by occupiers and the Helen Bowden nursing home in the Waterfront, Ahmed Kathrada House  .

“This is a classic David versus Goliath struggle, where activists challenge the powerful forces of politics and property. It has touched a nerve wherever we have screened the film and resonates deeply with audiences worldwide – this is not just a South African problem,” says Pearlie Joubert, who recently  screened the film to the Renters Union in London.

“All over the world people who are living on the edges are talking truth to power, taking their fight like the Reclaim the City movement - to the streets, the courts, high-end events, and governments determined to make their voices heard. We are hoping this film will create the necessary impact for activists as well as those in power whose decisions affect them, we want each and every person who sees this film to be moved to action,” says Redelinghuys.

Link to ticket sales

 Cape Town: https://bit.ly/3AGbNPc

Johannesburg: https://bit.ly/3X4UzT4

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