Miracle Rising : History Channel screens SA documentary tonight

Miracle Rising: South Africa, screened tonight on The History Channel UK, is a documentary about the legacy of South Africa's political transformation that culminated in the first free and fair elections in April 1994.

Narrated through personal accounts from world leaders, politicians, celebrities and journalists including Richard Branson, Whoopi Goldberg, Desmond Tutu, Cyril Ramaphosa, Embeth Davidtz and Mamphela Ramphele, this thought-provoking show reflects on South Africa's very own miracle'.

Miracle Rising: South Africa is a moving testament to the choices of people, both ordinary and iconic, where the human capacity to find compassion enabled a nation to avoid civil war and reach forgiveness for the greater good.

From Nelson Mandela's decision to learn Afrikaans while in prison, to the amnesty hearings of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, it explores the difficult decisions that were taken enabling enemies to achieve peace.

From the evil legacy of apartheid, to the triumphant first democratic elections, the documentary moves beyond mere chronology, into the hearts and minds of the leaders and people of South Africa, culminating in the electrifying behind-the-scenes events of the elections.

Miracle Rising focuses on the visionary leadership and negotiations that brought about transition of the nationalist regime to a system of one-person, one-vote. Told through simple, intimate portraits of key players, it weaves an epic story of a nation into an intimate history of men and women determined to change the country for the best for all who live there.

However, the documentary has also attracted some controversy over claims that its producers plagiarised a South African professor's work.

Dr Geoffry Heald, a senior lecturer at Wits Business School, has filed papers in court suing the film's production house Combined Artists for copyright infringement.

He claims that his literary works Learning Amongst Enemies: A Phenomenological Study of the South African Constitutional Negotiations from 1985 to 1988 and South Africa's Voluntary Relinquishment of its Nuclear Arsenal and Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in Terms of International Law formed the basis for Miracle Rising.

Heald said he sent the History Channel his PHD entitled Learning Amongst Enemies and enquired whether they thought it could be converted into a documentary film. He had been working with the producers on the film since 2006.

Heald said while he has not yet seen the final documentary, having been excluded from its production, he believes that the previous cuts he has seen were based on his thesis.

According to The Saturday Star, The academic had insisted that his copyright be acknowledged in the documentary but Combined Artists insisted it was not based on his two theses and that he had no claim to copyright.

Combined Artists' attorneys told the Saturday Star that Heald's claim was incorrect. The documentary is a historical documentary based on historical events that occurred in South Africa leading up to its democracy.

Watch Miracle Rising: South Africa on Monday 11 February at 9pm.

LINK:	http://www.thesouthafrican.com/entertainment/south-african-film/miracl...
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