(Thuli
Madonsela)
Whispering
Truth To Power, Shameela Seedat’s documentary about
Thuli Madonsela’s last year as South Africa’s public protector, is now
streaming first on Showmax.
A perfect fit for Women’s Day, the
acclaimed documentary won the Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs, North America’s
most important documentary festival, as well as awards at FESPACO, Luxor
African Film Festival, and Jozi Film Festival, where it was also the opening
night film, like it was at Encounters.
The Hot Docs jury praised Whispering Truth To Power for “its
timely portrait of a bad-ass public servant who uses her office for good at a
pivotal moment in South African politics.”
With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access, Whispering Truth To Power charts the
final year in office of South Africa’s anti-corruption champion as she attempts
to seek justice for ordinary people.
After successfully challenging President
Jacob Zuma for illegal use of state funds, Madonsela now has to face the
biggest challenge of her career: investigating – in the face of protests, death
threats and legal challenges – the alleged systematic takeover of government by
a private family in cahoots with the President.
If you’re looking for a woman to inspire
you this Women’s Month, Madonsela is an obvious choice: soft-spoken but
decisive, she was named Daily Maverick’s South African Person Of The Year in
2011, one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2014, and
Forbes’ African Person Of The Year and one of BBC’s 100 Women in 2016, among
many other accolades.
But while Madonsela herself is inspiring,
the story Whispering Truth To Power
has to tell is sobering for South Africans.
“In other countries, people don’t know who
the ombudsman is,” says her son Wantu early in the documentary, after
complaining good-naturedly about how hard it was for him to have a normal
conversation about Liverpool versus Manchester United without someone bringing
up his mother. “If the government is doing their job properly, then the
ombudsman is not this celebrated figure who is fighting the good fight, because
there shouldn’t be that fight.”
While Whispering
Truth To Power is partly a gripping tale of Madonsela versus Zuma, the
Guptas, and a ticking clock, it’s also an intimate look at her life as a
single, working mother of two adult children, and the generational tensions
that exist in South Africa at the moment.
At the time of the documentary, Madonsela’s
daughter Wenzile was a student at The University of Pretoria, a member of the
EFF’s student structures, and clearly had a different view of South Africa’s
political priorities to that of her mother.
“There is tremendous love between them, and
there are of course, raging tensions,” wrote Sisonke Msimang in Africa Is A Country. “Their
relationship. with all its contradictions ... is perhaps a perfect metaphor for
the state of South Africa.”
Whispering
Truth To Power was the debut feature documentary
from director Shameela Seedat, who previously worked in human rights and social
justice research and advocacy, including at the Constitutional Court in
Johannesburg, UNIFEM in New York and the Institute for Democracy in South
Africa.
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