CA Bay Area. Movie: Miners Shot Down

 Showing this Wednesday at 7 pm, April 23, 2014, at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley.

Suggested donation: $10, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Proceeds will be sent to currently striking platinum miners' strike fund in Rustenburg.

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. 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 Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.

What emerges is collusion at the top, spiralling violence and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre. South Africa will never be the same again.

This is a rare opportunity to see a courageous documentary in a class of its own – the only feature-length documentary on the Marikana massacre.  Never before screened in the United States, its director Rehad Desai has generously agreed to let us show this film.

With the impending Bay Area visit (see second attached flyer) of Mphumzi Maqungo from the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), this screening will provide ample background on the rise of rank-and-file militancy in South Africa and the completion of the African National Congress’ long  road to capitulation.