Life, Above All
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
No booking required
Life, Above All
Oliver Schmitz, South Africa, 2010, 108 minutes
Friday 3 May, 6.00 pm Presenter: Annette-Carina van der Zaag (B’beck)
Life, Above All is based on Allan Stratton's novel Chanda's Wars. The story takes place within a South African township near Johannesburg and concerns a 12-year-old girl Chanda (Khomotso Manyaka) who takes responsibility for caring for her family after her baby sister dies and her mother is debilitated by grief and illness. Suspicion spreads in the neighbourhood that the real cause of the family's problems is AIDS, although throughout the film, in a reflection of the official denial of the realities of HIV especially during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency, AIDS remains the word that cannot be uttered. Chanda does what she can to care for her siblings, attend school, keep up appearances and maintain her friendship with her schoolfriend Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane), who is forced into sex work in order to survive. Life, Above All shows the violent effects of HIV stigma as an unspeakable stain carried by those it affects. The film is a powerful portrayal of women’s lived realities of HIV in a township in South Africa. It tells a story both of women’s specific socio-sexual vulnerability to the virus, and also of the practices of care and survival that emerge in its wake..
For information about the Guilt Group's work, see http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bisr/research/guilt-working-group.
BIMI is funded by four schools at Birkbeck: the School of Arts, the School of Law, the School of Social Sciences,
History and Philosophy, and the School of Science. The University of Pittsburgh is also a partner and co-funder
Contact name:
Matthew Anthony Barrington
Contact phone:
02076316115