mother city
( miki redelinghuys & pearlie joubert )
2024
SA
film
official programme
( right to the city )
“Mother City (103 min, South Africa, 2024) by Miki Redelinghuys and Pearlie Joubert stands out for its bold, deeply committed filmmaking that confronts one of South Africa’s most urgent societal, legal and political issues: Through six years of fearless, immersive documentation, the directors craft a powerful document of housing injustice in Cape Town. Blending activism with investigative journalism, the film reveals how urban development continues to marginalize poor, predominantly Black communities. With intimate access and unwavering dedication, they illuminate the painful intersection of poverty, homelessness, and land commodification. Mother City becomes both a personal and political act—one that affirms housing as a fundamental human right and compels global reflection on urban exclusion.”
→ Jury statment ( Fabrizio Gallanti, Julia Albani, Romullo Baratto, Teresa Novais, Vasco Mendes )
( right to the city )
“Mother City (103 min, South Africa, 2024) by Miki Redelinghuys and Pearlie Joubert stands out for its bold, deeply committed filmmaking that confronts one of South Africa’s most urgent societal, legal and political issues: Through six years of fearless, immersive documentation, the directors craft a powerful document of housing injustice in Cape Town. Blending activism with investigative journalism, the film reveals how urban development continues to marginalize poor, predominantly Black communities. With intimate access and unwavering dedication, they illuminate the painful intersection of poverty, homelessness, and land commodification. Mother City becomes both a personal and political act—one that affirms housing as a fundamental human right and compels global reflection on urban exclusion.”
→ Jury statment ( Fabrizio Gallanti, Julia Albani, Romullo Baratto, Teresa Novais, Vasco Mendes )
"Mother City" is a deeply human, often heart-breaking and at times humorous look at the global politics of urbanism. Filmed in Cape Town over 6 years, the story starts in 2016 when the government decided to sell a school, earmarked for affordable housing, to a private developer. As an act of resistance, housing activists from Reclaim the City (RTC) occupy two government buildings on prime city land. A narrative documentary, "Mother City" is nail-biting cinema as activists take on property power in a city still disfigured by spatial apartheid. RTC organiser and activist Nkosikhona Swartbooi tells this story with ruthless honesty as they wage a defiant war against government officials and property developers in one of the world’s most unequal cities. The film exposes the deep fault lines still in existence after 30 years of democracy because the South African government has not offered solutions to the most urgent and explosive issue of land and ownership, endearing generations of working-class people homeless.
language: afrikaans, english, xhosa
subtitles: english
organiser
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