By Farirai Dangwa
As another Mother’s Day comes and goes, Rhodes University’s Documentary and Filmmakers Association commemorates this day by hosting a documentary screening of ‘Girl, Taken,’ a gripping true story of the abduction of a baby girl taken from a hospital three days after her birth.
The screening took place at the Amazwi Museum of Literature on 10 May. After viewing the documentary, one of the directors, François Verster, a South African independent film director and documentary maker, joined via Zoom and spoke about the film. Before the Zoom meeting, people were encouraged to write down questions and comments they wanted to share with the director. François says at the beginning of the discussion, “This film is an incredibly interesting insight into the question of nature and nurture. It is a story that reveals a huge amount about your expectations around your upbringing and what is your bloodline and genetics. How those two things function in very different ways and have different moral values to what people might expect.”
Girl, Taken was one of many documentary and film screenings held by the Documentary and Filmmakers Association’s program, Doc Love. The Doc Love initiative is a part of the President’s Employment Stimulus Program that focuses on showing the public mostly, but not exclusively, South African documentaries. As one of the collaborators of Doc Love, Luyanda Dube, says, “We screen films to get the public to talk about them, and we screen films that are impactful.” The Doc Love Association aims to create a space within the community of Makhanda to allow people to speak about difficult or controversial topics.
The Doc Love initiative aims to screen films that foster open dialogues and bring people together in good and bad times. As Dr. Alette Schoon says, “The purpose of Doc Love is to show how one can use documentaries to create conversation, often difficult conversations. This film really shows how hurt can tear a family apart, but time can heal. I think that’s a powerful message for Mother’s Day.”
