The multi-award-winning documentary, Miners Shot Down, will have two special screenings on Saturday, 16 August 2014 at Cinema Nouveau, to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the Marikana massacre it investigates. The screenings are taking place at 17:00 and 20:00 only, at Cinema Nouveau theatres at Rosebank (JHB), Brooklyn (PTA), Gateway (DBN) and V&A Waterfront (CT).

Striking mine workers on koppie before massacre

In August 2012, mineworkers in Lonmin, one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines, began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. The police insisted that they shot in self-defence, but Miners Shot Down, directed by Rehad Desai, tells a different story.

Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.  What emerges is collusion at the top, spiraling violence and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre.

The documentary has been a festival favourite, opening leading international documentary festivals such as One World and Sheffield, and winning Best Film at One World in Prague; Movies That Matter in The Hague; and The Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival in Myanmar.

In South Africa, it has won awards from the two leading festivals for documentaries, scooping the Special Choice Award at Encounters South African International Documentary Festival in June and both the Best South African Documentary and Amnesty International Human Rights Awards at the recent Durban International Film Festival in July 2014.

The ongoing Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the massacre began in October 2012 and recently had its deadline extended yet again until 30 September 2014.

For booking information, visit www.cinemanouveau.co.za or sterkinekor.mobi, or call our Ticketline on 0861-Movies (668 437). Follow us on Twitter @nouveaubuzz and on Facebook at Cinema Nouveau. You can also download the Ster-Kinekor App on any Nokia, Samsung Android, iPhone and Blackberry smart phone to download the latest updates and news, and to book tickets from your handset.

What people are saying:

“Rehad Desai’s beautifully filmed and uncompromising documentary, Miners Shot Down, is about so much more than the massacre by police of 34 striking workers at the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana in August 2012. The film offers a unique prism through which to view contemporary power relations in ‘democratic’ South Africa (and perhaps globally) where the unholy trinity of capital, politics and security were (and are) pitted against labour…” – Marianne Thamm, Daily Maverick

“Literally left me speechless… The world looked different when I emerged from the cinema. It doesn’t often happen to me.”- Charl Blignaut, City Press

“Important, comprehensive and damning… Essential viewing.” – Encounters South African Documentary Festival

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