Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - August 7, 2005

But the 7th Annual Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival reveals another side of Zackie Achmat - that of documentary filmmaker.

Achmat tries to bring to life South Africa's Constitution and the Constitutional Court in his documentary entitled Law and Freedom.

With Achmat as narrator, Law and Freedom takes viewers on a moving, yet fleeting, tour through the major events that led to the establishment of the Constitutional Court on February 14 1995.

The documentary opens with a shot of Achmat and his cousins, Washiela and Mashnoona Abrahams, walking on a field in Fietas, Joburg, where Achmat lived until the late '60s, until the Group Areas Act destroyed his home and the rest of the neighbourhood.

"That was my first experience of the law," Achmat said this week.

"I made this documentary because I believe that activists need to use all mediums at our disposal ... I only make videos when I have something to say."

Bringing a potentially dry subject to life was not difficult, said Achmat, because of the number of cases and personalities who had helped to make the Constitution live.

Law and Freedom is presented in two parts.

The first part, Who was Mrs Komani?, tells the story of Nonceba Komani, who was oppressed by restrictive pass laws that tried to force her to leave her husband in the Cape and move to a homeland. Here, Achmat reminds us of the horrors of life under apartheid.

Komani was instrumental in the abolition of the pass laws in the '80s.

Part Two, entitled A Nice Country, is far more aggressive in the way it recounts what it actually takes to make a Constitution work for the people.

Achmat takes us through cases in which various South Africans went to court to fight for access to adequate housing, the reinstating of unlawfully discontinued pension and disability grants, and finally, pregnant women's access to antiretrovirals in order to prevent the mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

What we learn from these victories - especially that of the Treatment Action Campaign, led by impressive Advocate Geoff Budlender - is that the Constitution is only as powerful as the people whose rights it serves to protect.

Both parts of Law and Freedom will be screened at this year's Encounters International Documentary Film Festival tomorrow at 5.45pm, at Cinema Nouveau, Rosebank, which runs until August 14. For more information on the festival and the documentaries, visit the website www.encounters.co.za or call (021) 465-4686.

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