Le passé est, à bien des égards, « Une chanson qui voyage », qu’on ne peut aisément supprimer ou taire.

Réalisatrice : Lindy Wilson

The past is, in many ways, « A Travelling Song », one which can not easily be supressed or silenced. It travels with all of us and shapes out the future. For South Africa to create a new song, after the years of repression, much will have to be reinterpreted, rediscovered and told in a new way.


The past is A TRAVELLING SONG which cannot easily be suppressed or silenced. It travels with us and shapes our future. For South Africans to create a new’song’ after endless years of oppression much is needed to be re-interpreted re-discovered and re-born. Two actors, GCINA MHLOPE and PATRICK SHAI, meet on the stage-set of Athol Fugard’s PLAYLAND, and consider this task. They perform and improvise on the stage but soon realise that the theatre is too confined a space for the stories they seek and that they are bound to go outside. Patrick goes two kilometres underground to meet the men who continue to dig gold in mines worked for 100 years and Gcina meets their wives. All of this will make a very unusual, very different documentary film. Indeed, they realise they will have to make several films. In fact, they will need a whole new TV channel.

Dir. Lindy Wilson

Date: 1993, Length: 54mins


Awards
NTVA Avanti National Documentary Film (1993) South Africa
Cies Premio Tam Tam Video Award (1994)Italy

Shooting Location (Country): South Africa

Broadcasts
South Africa – SABC – 1994