In an alternate 1982, an alien ship inexplicably stops over Johannesburg. When investigation teams enter the ship, they discover a population of sick and malnourished extraterrestrials, derogatorily referred to as "prawns". The South African government confines the aliens to "District 9", a government camp that is located outside of Johannesburg. Twenty-eight years later, in 2010, following periodic conflict between the aliens and the locals living near District 9, the government hires private military company Multinational United (MNU) to relocate the aliens to a new internment. Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), an Afrikaner bureaucrat, is appointed by Piet Smit (Louis Minnaar), an MNU executive and his father-in-law, to lead the relocation.
Yesterday is a Zulu mother living with her seven-year-old daughter, Beauty, in their rural village of Rooihoek (English translation means literally "red corner"), in Zululand, South Africa. Every day of her life is spent in the hard work of tilling the field to plant enough food for them, fetching water, cutting firewood and hauling it home, all while also trying to keep her daughter stimulated and occupied. She strikes up a friendship with the new teacher who arrives in the village.
Bienvenu dans le monde de Rob, un chômeur d’une vingtaine d’années. Censé être en train d’écrire le roman sud-africain du siècle, il passe d’une aventure à une autre. Un pistolet et un passe-montagne, un ticket de loterie gagnant, des amis et un ennemi qui le poursuit, sont les ingrédients de cette histoire. Cette aventure permettra à Rob de découvrir un sens à sa vie.
Tertius Coetzee, a young South African Police constable during apartheid, is granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for torturing and killing a Coloured ANC activist. Haunted by his brutal past, Coetzee travels to a West Coast fishing village to find the man's family and eventually ask their forgiveness.
À l'âge de dix ans, Thembi et son frère de huit ans, Khwezi, perdent leur maman. Leur tante vient pour s'occuper d'eux. Malheureusement, après avoir vendu toutes les possessions de la famille, elle abandonne les enfants qui n'arrivent à sauver qu'un petit tapis zoulou que leur mère avait fait avant de mourir. Prenant leur destin en main, Thembi convainc son jeune frère de partir pour la grande ville, Durban. Là-bas, ils se retrouvent abandonnés à eux-mêmes dans la terrifiante métropole.
Xi and his San tribe (of !Kung bushmen) are "living well off the land" in the Kalahari Desert. They are happy because of their belief that the gods have provided plenty of everything, and no one among them has any wants. One day, a Coca-Cola bottle is thrown out of an airplane and falls to Earth unbroken. Initially, Xi's people suppose this strange artifact is another "present" from the gods and find many uses for it. (They employ it as a crafts tool, blow the top to make music, etc.) But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one glass bottle to go around. With everyone wanting it at once, they soon find themselves experiencing envy, anger, and even violence.
Les 12 hommes qui ont quitté Bloemfontein ont abandonné l’Afrique du Sud en 1960 pour faire prendre conscience à l’étranger de la réalité du Congrès national africain (ANC). Parmi eux se trouvait Benjamin Pule Leinaeng, le beau-père du réalisateur. À son enterrement à Bloemfontein, Harris découvre l’extrême courage de cet homme. Ce film est une acceptation posthume de la paternité de Leinaeng et un hommage aux douze hommes qui ont sacrifié leur propre vie pour la liberté de leur pays.
Kieren, un jeune gamin des rues du Cap, se découvre une passion pour le trapèze, après avoir essayé de détrousser un des grands artistes de cette spécialité. Une amitié naît entre le maître et le voyou... au fil de longues heures d’entraînement, Kieren s’éloigne de la délinquance. Devenu adulte, le passé ne manque pas de lui rappeler d’où il vient, quand son frère Spies sort de prison...
Andre Stander is an officer with the South African Police, newly married with a reputation as the youngest captain on the force, he and his partner are assigned along with other officers to riot duty in the wake of the Soweto uprising. In the chaos of one of the riots in Tembisa, Stander shoots a young, unarmed protester, which deeply affects him and causes him to become disillusioned towards the Apartheid system. One day on his lunch break Stander decides to spontaneously walk in and rob a bank, he thoroughly enjoys the rush and decides to embark on a spree of robberies, even responding to one in official capacity as an officer. In the wake of these robberies, Cor Van Deventer, Stander's partner, leads a team assigned to take down the new bank robber. Eventually being able to see through Stander's disguises, Deventer's team finally makes the arrest, Andre Stander is stripped of his position and sentenced to 32 years in prison.
The film tells the remarkable and sometimes harrowing story of four young men and the extremes they went to in order to capture their pictures in the days prior to the downfall of Apartheid in South Africa.
Gian Singh (Jimi Mistry) is a Sikh who goes off to war in the British Indian Army with his two best friends Andrew and Avtar. The three are being seen off by Andrew's sister Margaret and Walter. Gian promises to look after Andrew only to resign after Andrew is killed. Gian is tortured by the guilt of not being able to save Andrew. The young Muslim woman Naseem (Kristin Kreuk) is separated from her family in riots and unaware that her father has been killed, hides in hope that the Sikh mobs won't find her.
Alongside the southernmost urban centre in Africa, separating city from ocean, lays a very special strip of land. Set against the beautiful backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Signal Hill on the other, the Sea Point Promenade – and the public swimming pools in its centre – forms a space unlike any in Cape Town. Once a bastion of Apartheid exclusivity, it is nowadays unique in its apparently easy mix of age, race, gender, religion, wealth status and sexual orientation. Somehow this space has become one where all South Africans feel they have a right to exist, and where the possibility of happiness in a divided world doesn't seem unfeasible. But what is the reality of those coming here? How do people see their past, their present in this space and their future in this country?
Documentaire honnête, décalé et parfois frénétique sur Johannesburg mettant en avant la plus grande ville d'Afrique du Sud et la porte d’entrée du reste du monde vers l’Afrique australe. Avec un récit rapide, de l'humour nerveux, des anecdotes triviales, des observations piquantes et une bande son très drôle, le film dévoile la vraie vie de cette ville méconnue, mythique et décriée.