Miners Shot Down wins the Cinema for Peace Award for Justice

To be presented an award by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is very affirming. We have a just cause and one day those behind the Marikana massacre will face trial and therefore the consequences. (Rehad Desai, Director)

South African documentary film, Miners Shot Down, has won the Cinema for Peace Award for Justice, 2015. The Cinema for Peace Award for Justice was initiated in 2009, together with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The announcement was made in Berlin at the Awards Gala on February 9th, 2015.

This year's Cinema for Peace Award for Justice was deliberated on by a group of very powerful figures, including the chief prosecutor of the ICC. This means that people will be looking very closely at the evidence of political collusion that is highlighted by the film. For example, the role of Cyril Ramaphosa, the current Deputy President of South Africa, who at the time of the massacre was a shareholder and a non-executive board member of Lonmin, as well as a senior member of the ANC.

Cyril Ramaphosa is a known skilled negotiator. The strikers' key demand was to negotiate with Lonmin management. Ramaphosa chose not to procure peaceful dialogue in August 2012. Instead he communicated with cabinet ministers on the need to escalate the use of force to end the strike.

Cinema for Peace has supported a number of important causes with the help of artists such as Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and personalities such as the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Ali, Bill and Hillary Clinton, president Mikhail Gorbachev and our former Honorary Patron Nelson Mandela.

Several winning films have been screened at special occasions and campaigns, including at the UN General Assembly and in a campaign to save Sakineh Ashtiani from death by stoning. The Cinema for Peace Justice Award for Miners Shot Down bolsters the case for all those responsible for the massacre to get their day in court.

Endorsement by icons like Nelson Mandela and George Clooney will help to propel the film and its campaign for justice to greater heights. We won't rest until the victims of the massacre get justice. Rehad Desai, Director.

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