To launch an inquiry on the moving image as integral to the project on aesthetic education and kinesis, the CHR launched a programme in Documentary Film in 2012.
Originally organised in collaboration with the Department of English at UWC, the Documentary Film programme aimed to both explore filmic languages of the documentary form in Africa and South Africa in particular, as well as a training in specialist skills in documentary film. The programme is convened and taught by Francois Verster and has been supported by industry professionals such as Khalid Shamis, Mark Kaplan, Tamara Kotevska, Donietta Tolasco, Marcos Martins, Marius van Straten, and Neils Pagh Anderson. In addition to weekly viewings of exemplary films in the genre of documentary, the programme convenes public screenings and roughcut sessions in collaboration with Encounters Documentary Film Festival and the South African Documentary Film Association. Several films from the programme have been screened at the Encounters Documentary Film Festival, with Rui Assubuji’s Art of Healing being awarded the best short in 2018. A season of twenty-eight curated films were screened on Cape Town TV in 2023.
The Documentary Film programme invites fellows and graduate students from the Arts faculty to discover techniques and ways of exploring their key research questions through the medium of film and its under-utilised archives, particularly those held at the UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye archive.
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