Nicolas Champeaux – The State Against Mandela and the Others #CIFF40

December 3, 2018

Nicolas Champeaux - The State Against Mandela and the Others #CIFF40 fredfilmradio

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Nicolas Champeaux, director of the documentary The State Against Mandela and the Others.

Director Nicolas Champeaux presented his documentary feature film The State Against Mandela and the Others at the 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt. The film draws from the extensive audio archive of the 1963 Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela, with a special focus on the other fellow defendants of Mandela and others touched by the trial via interviews. In this interview, we talk about the archive and the challenge of representing it via animation, prompted by the fact that no visual footage of the trials was recorded. But we also discuss how history is often told. One of the main objectives of this documentary is in fact to tell the story of “the others,” who were involved in the trial with Mandela but are also often forgotten.

The State Against Mandela and the Others: 2018 marks the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth. He seized centre stage during a historic trial in 1963 and 1964. But there were eight others who, like him, faced the death sentence. They too were subjected to pitiless cross-examinations. To a man they stood firm and turned the tables on the state: South Africa’s apartheid regime was in the dock. Recently recovered sound archives of those hearings transport us back into the thick of the courtroom battles.

Written by: fredfilmradio

Cairo International Film Festival International Panorama Matt Micucci Nicolas Champeaux The State Against Mandela and the Others

Guest

Matt Micucci Nicolas Champeaux

Film

The State Against Mandela and the Others

Festival

Cairo International Film Festival

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