The Antidote

Testing Hope August 24, 2008

Please come and join While You Were Sleeping and Shikaya at the screening of a captivating new documentary film about the post-Apartheid education system in South Africa:

Testing Hope: Grade 12 in the new South Africa directed by Molly Blank.

Testing Hope tells the story of four students in Nyanga township outside Cape Town, who started school the year that Mandela was elected president, as they prepare for their crucial Matric exams which one student calls, “the decider.” The film considers what’s at stake if students pass or fail and how they envision their future in this evolving democracy.

Testing Hope will be shown at the Labia on Orange cinema in Cape Town on Sunday 31 August at 8:00pm, on Monday 1 September at 8:00pm and on Tuesday 2 September at 8:00pm.

This captivating and enlightening film recently been featured in Drum Magazine, the Sunday Times, the Star, the Saturday Star, and on the American National Public Radio.

“In a brilliant new documentary…an American filmmaker traces the lives, hopes and aspirations… of black teenagers during…their Matric year. It is a heartbreaking story, and nobody who watches this hour long film will ever again interpret the Matric results with the unrestrained exuberance to which we are treated every year… Testing Hope has touched a raw nerve in our post-1994 democracy. What drives many to action upon seeing this film is that, we realize, in a very vivid way, how high the stakes are for poor students and the dramatic consequences of failure for individuals, families and ultimately society as a whole. This movie is activism in its purest form.”

Jonathan Jansen, immediate past Dean, Education Faculty, University of Pretoria

For more information on the film, visit www.testinghope.com.

The screenings will be followed by a facilitated audience discussion. The director Molly Blank and some of the students featured in the film will be present to take part in the discussion. Tickets are R20 and can be reserved by calling The Labia at 021 424 5927. Reserving tickets is strongly recommended to avoid disappointment.

This event is presented by The Labia, Shikaya, a non-profit that works with teachers to create responsible, critical thinking and caring citizens of South Africa, and While You Were Sleeping, a Cape Town-based non-profit film collective committed to bringing progressive, non-mainstream documentaries with important social and environmental messages to South African audiences.

Contacts:

The Labia:

021 424 5927

While You Were Sleeping:

Andreas Späth

084 772 1056

Andreas_Spath@yahoo.com

www.whileyouweresleeping.wordpress.com

Shikaya

Dylan Wray

021 461 4239

083 391 3709

dylan@shikaya.org