Documentary to highlight the beauty of Mokopane
Mokopane recently became one of the privileged towns of which a documentary has been made called The Story of a Small Town and the community and part takers of the documentary had the chance to screen an episode for the first time on Saturday, 3 November, at the Park Hotel.
MOKOPANE – Uhuru Productions founded in 2003 creates high-quality documentary and drama productions for local and international audiences. The company has a wealth of expertise in the production and management of documentaries, drama and advocacy films. Their biggest achievement is winning the 2015 International Emmy Award for Best Documentary Film for Miners Shot Down.
Reinart Toerien, director/producer of Run Riot Productions says: “Having decided to cover the province of Limpopo in the series, the episode director, Palesa Mofokeng, had a close resonance with the town as her father was from Mokopane and having been born there- she wanted to go back to her former home to find out what the dawn of South Africa’s democracy meant for the people of this town. We decided to take on the project ‘Story of a Small Town’ as it was an opportunity for us to give a voice to many communities around the country that often go unreported and uncovered by the main-stream media.” They are planning to air the documentary episode on SABC in 2019.
A third of South Africans lives in semi-rural, small towns, based on a nationwide study by the Centre for Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. The Story of a Small Town series explores how much has really changed, and how much has stayed the same since the dawn of South Africa’s democracy. The series takes a look at how effectively transformation has truly occurred in six small towns in South Africa. More than 20 years into democracy, these small towns are often forgotten, and the people who live there are left voiceless against issues they face.
He further says: “As the study by Wits suggests, a third of the country’s population live in these spaces and despite that proportion, these towns and communities are very heavily under represented, not only in the media, but also in numerous discussions happening on various levels and platforms in the country. This documentary episode takes a sobering look at a community crippled by bad governance and the people, both political and ordinary citizens, who fight to try and put a stop to those in power who have been overtaken by greed.”
Various community members like Betty Laka, Sammuel Mashishi, Elita Jansen van Vuuren, Marcelle Maritz, Tabriz Dola, Percy Nketsi and Mocks Nkhono were interviewed for the documentary. Part of the episode synopsis read as follows: “Once an agriculturally rich town, now turned into a mining town, Mokopane in the Limpopo has historically been a place of conflict with the Voortrekkers, Ndebele and Sepedi tribes clashing for years in the 19th century. Fast forward to 2017 and clashes are still a part of the town’s make-up, only now it’s in political form. Tales of widespread corruption and maladministration within the
municipality emerge. Between the mine, broken municipality and tribal chiefs – a few elite people enjoy the fruit of the hard working general public and those who try to stand up against them? They face being taken out, literally.”
After the screening, there were a few critics who mentioned that there must be more history explained in the episode and others said that it must not be made political, but Toerien accepts the criticism. “We appreciate the criticism. That is part of the reason we decided to engage with the community. We wanted to create a platform for them to speak to us. Most of the criticism was aimed at things which, because of circumstances outside of our management, could not be changed.”
