When the Mountain Meets its Shadow Alexander Kleider and Daniela Michel, Germany, 2009, 63 minutes
Friday, May 14 | 4:30pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
In few other cities of the world can poverty and wealth be found as close together as in Cape Town, South Africa. When you travel along the highway from the airport to the city, you experience two parallel worlds. On one side of the road are ostentatious houses “protected” by barbed wire and german shepherds; on the other side of the road are shacks made of scrap plywood and cardboard. With the upcoming World Cup of Soccer on the horizon, Cape Town is cleaning up the city for visitors and the poor are being pushed from their homes.
When the Mountain Meets its Shadow tells the stories of Ashraf, Mne, Zoliswa and Arnold, who, each in their own way, fight for survival in the informal settlements around Cape Town. While Ashraf and his friend Mne from the Anti-Eviction Campaign fight against evictions and water and electricity cut-offs in the townships, Zoliswa and Arnold put their trust in their ability to work. Zoliswa, a single mother, is looking for a new position as a cleaner and Arnold trains as an armed guard to work in the booming security industry. When the city council wants to clear an entire informal settlement, Ashraf and Mne are confronted with their own undigested experiences from the apartheid years.
While the two paths chosen may seem contrary, they are intrinsically linked. The story of the activists, Ashraf and Mne, is inspiring as a lesson in community development. People are organizing and taking matters into their own hands where possible — all in a peaceful manner. The workers are inspiring in their way too, especially in their unlimited patience and civility. What is so frustrating is that available job opportunities are so focused on keeping them subservient. The women cook and clean for the rich, while the men patrol their gated housing complexes. It’s hard not to imagine what could be possible if people were able to use their labour to build their own communities and economies, rather than to maintain the structure of oppression.
Ashraf encapsulates the situation in one moment. As he and Mne stand on a hill surveying the city, Ashraf remarks “this city used to be divided by black and white, now it is divided by rich and poor.”
North American premiere
Directors' biographies
Alexander Kleider was born in 1975 in Böblingen, Germany, and pursued Communication Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Daniela Michel was born in 1975 in Stuttgart, Germany, and studied Film Studies and International Relations at the London Guildhall University in the UK. Since 2001 Kleider and Michel have made feature-length documentaries as well as magazine items for theatrical release, television and radio. Since 2004 they have been lecturing about documentary filmmaking.
