Heartlines

Set in the 1700s, Shaka iLembe tells the story of the making of the iconic African king, with iterations from his early childhood through to adulthood.

A documentary that chronicles the life of South African leader Nelson Mandela. Mandela is probably best known for his 27 years of imprisonment, and for bringing an end to apartheid. But this film also sheds light on the little-known early period of Mandela's life.

A journey into the mines provides a visual representation of a journey into the conscience of Kentridge's invented character, Soho Eckstein, the white South African property owner who exploits the resources of land and black human labour which are under his domain. Throughout the film the imagery shifts between the geological landscape underground inhabited by innumerable black miners and Soho's world of white luxury above ground. When Soho, breakfasting in bed, pushes down the plunger of his cafetière, its movement is transformed into a rapid descent through the tray, through the bed and into the mine-shaft. Here the miners' world of overwhelming misery is depicted in claustrophobic tunnels where they are trapped digging, drilling and sleeping, embedded in rock. Above ground, Soho sits at his desk in his customary pin-stripe suit and punches adding machines and cash registers, creating a flow of gold bars, exhausted miners, blasted landscapes and blocks of uniform housing.

This dramatic true crime series reveals how some of the UK’s most serious and complex cases were solved by the expertise of a band of unsung heroes – the expert witnesses.

William Kentridge’s ironic tribute to his hometown, animated on the basis of 25 drawings, is the first film of his “Drawing for Protection” cycle, in which he unfolds the triangle between Johannesburg building tycoon Soho Eckstein, his wife, and the dreamer Felix Teitelbaum. In this film he introduces the central characters of his meta-narrative which, located in a South Africa of the last days of a crumbling Apartheid, becomes an allegorical reflection on socio-political power relations.