Award for film of hope emerging from the Apareid era

A film documenting forgiveness in the apartheid era produced by a man from Newbury has won an international award. by John Herring

Beyond Forgiving tells a story of trauma and hope experienced by two South African people Letlapa Mphahlele, a black atheist man, and Ginn Fourie, a white Christian woman.

In 1993, Mr Mphahlele directed reprisal operations in response to the killing of black school children.

One raid resulted in the death of Mrs Fourie's only daughter, but she later forgave the man whose actions led to the loss of her child.

The film has now won the Golden Award for Inspiration at this year's International Film Festival for Peace, Inspiration and Equality.

The documentary was produced by Howard Grace, a former teacher at St Bartholomew's School, Newbury, who lived in South Africa for three years during the 1970s.

Mr Grace, who lives in Wash Common, said: We were delighted to receive this award. It is a real honour. For me it was a real privilege to be involved as it is such a precious story of hope emerging from that distressing time in history, which I had been involved in.

Mr Grace ended up fleeing the country in 1979 after falling foul of the security services for visiting a friend in prison - a leader of the schools boycott in Soweto where hundreds of students were shot dead.

The filming process began after Mr Grace met the pair at a conference eight years ago and, inspired by their story, invited Mr Mphahlele to discuss his experiences with sixth form students in the UK.

Seeing the emotional impact on them, Mr Grace and director Imad Karam decided to document the pair's inspirational story 18 months ago.

The crew spent two weeks filming in South Africa, including interviews with Mrs Fourie and Mr Mphahlele, now a South African MP, with post production taking a year to complete.

It was a moving experience to go into parliament with [Mr Mphahlele] to film, when the last time I was in South Africa 34 years ago it was an all white government, Mr Grace said.

I have had a universally positive response. I showed [the film] at an international conference in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago.

He said that there had been a deeply thoughtful response from the audience including a young Serbian woman who said seeing the film has prompted her to think about the hurts that her people have inflicted on others, Mr Grace said.

This is not a film just about South Africa. It challenges all of us to think deeply about our relationships on all levels and about what is important in life.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk

LINK:	http://www.filmcontact.com/africa/south-africa/award-film-hope-emergin...
	See more stories from filmcontact

Most recent headlines