Filmography
These documentaries were commissioned by Sabido Productions. I directed and produced them all between 2007 and 2015.
Troopship Tragedy
(52 mins) 2015
It is February 1917. To provide logistical support on the front, a troopship of volunteers from the South African Native Labour Contingent is sent to France. The men never arrive. Their vessel, the SS Mendi, sinks in a tragic accident in the English Channel. This film can now be bought or viewed on Amazon prime.
https://www.amazon.com/Troopship-Tragedy-Sinking-SS-Mendi/dp/B088W7MWD3
The Vula Connection
(57 mins) 2014
Selected for the Encounters Film Festival, the Durban International Film Festival, the 22nd International Africa Diaspora Festival in New York, and the Videoteque section of the UK’s Sheffield Film Festival in 2014. It was also broadcast on eNCA in July 2014.
Tim Jenkin is an unlikely revolutionary. Breaking from a privileged life in apartheid South Africa, Jenkin placed himself in extreme danger as a young man by volunteering to assist the banned African National Congress. After a dramatic arrest, and even more outrageous prison break, Tim disappeared into the backrooms of the liberation movement.
Mandela – The Passing of an Icon
(52 mins) 2015
A news room forged in post-apartheid South Africa braces itself to cover the biggest story of its existence - the death of the father of the nation. The world has been waiting for Nelson Mandela to pass away for years, such was his age and frailty.
Comrade President - The Man from Nkandla
(52 mins) 2014
Broadcast on etv July 2014, a biography of President Jacob Zuma
Born into poverty in apartheid South Africa, Jacob Zuma defies his destiny, by making the difficult journey to the highest office of his newly liberated country. Zuma is a young Zulu herdboy, with no formal education, who is stirred into a political awakening by stories of local rebellions and socialist revolutions in distant corners of the world.
Coming of Age - the ANC’s a hundred years of struggle
(52 mins) 2012
Broadcast on eNCA and etv in January 2012
The African National Congress is the grand old man of liberation politics on the African continent. As it marks its centenary, the party of Nelson Mandela stops to consider its epic past, which directed South Africa's political evolution over the last century.
South Africa’s Last White President: Interviews with FW de Klerk
(2x 52 mins) 2012
South Africa's Last White President is a wily lawyer, steeped in the myths and traditions of Afrikaner nationalism, who broke ranks with his own people to save his country. FW de Klerk turned South Africa around at the end of the Cold War by releasing the liberation icon Nelson Mandela in preparation for negotiating a restorative democracy.
Diagnosing Damage
(52 mins) July 2012
Ten thousand children a year pass through the front room of the Trauma Unit at Africa's most celebrated hospital for children, an extraordinary patient load for the small staff of dedicated doctors and nurses at the coalface of South Africa's epidemic of injury and trauma.
Sentenced with Mandela: The story of Denis Goldberg
(52 mins) 2011
Sentenced with Mandela is the story of anti-apartheid activist Denis Goldberg, the only white revolutionary to be convicted at the Rivonia Trial in which Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress comrades were sentenced to life imprisonment in apartheid jails.
Man in the Middle
(52 mins) 2010
Nominated for the TV Sports Story of the year at the SAB Sports Journalist of the Year Award in 2010; broadcast on Supersport in 2010
Man in the Middle is the story of one big opportunity for a South African sportsman to walk into the spotlight during the biggest show on earth. In 2010, the FIFA World Cup was staged in South Africa, a huge acknowledgement of the progress the fledgling democracy has made since liberation in 1994.
This review was written in July 2020 by Miv Evans:
The Trouble with Truth
(52 mins) 2009
Included in a long-running exhibition called Red in the Rainbow about the Freedom of the Media in the 1960’s in South Africa
Trouble with Truth is the story of the power of print in the face of oppression. As the apartheid government clamped down on free political activity and speech, a cheeky, independent-minded weekly newspaper shouted its protests, against the odds in the racist South Africa of old.