Tapologo Film Review, South Africa/Spain visit website

Tapologo is a powerful, inspiring film telling the story of black South African women in their own words. We see the personal and political journey of ex-sex workers from Freedom Park, a squatter settlement, some of whom are HIV infected, yet they courageously turn tragedy into triumph creating network, Tapologo from which the filmmakers, Gabriela and Sally Gutierrez Dewar get the film title. Catholic Bishop Kevin Dowling’s involvement in the project raises doubts regarding official Catholic Church policy concerning AIDS, sexuality and the use of condoms in Africa.

The film shows these remarkable home-based care workers leading by their example to other women by taking their medication properly enabling them to help themselves and co-sufferers break the cycle of disease, degradation and squalour. By following the daily lives of these empowered women, we witness their transformation and how they now bring hope, practical help and emotional support to other women in the true spirit of sisterhood and solidarity, as they now train as nurses.

The film shows Freedom Park, Tapologo’s base, accommodating a migrant mining workforce. Shot in English and Tswana with English subtitles, we see and hear the women first-hand. We learn of their brutal survival by prostitution and consequent HIV infection. By contextualising both the sex trade and the mining boom in this Northwest province that boasts the world’s largest single platinum source, we can empathise with the women portrayed as protagonists of their healing/recovery process, not as victims in Tapologo. Fatima Dupres-Griffiths

Back Home Tomorrow, UK Premiere visit website

Dari, Nuba and Arabic, English subtitles This film follows the lives of children affected by conflict, focusing on Yagoub, a Dafur refugee living in the Mayo Refugee Camp in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. It also looks at Murtaza recovering in a Kabul hospital after losing his hand to a landmine. Not for the queasy, this bold documentary directed by Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Paolo Santolini shows the work of the Italian aid organisation, Emergency. They provide medical care to civilian casualties in war territories. By building up a close rapport with the children and their families, the filmmakers capture their pain, joy and future plans intimately. We even see footage of 16 year old Yagoub’s operation to give him the needed heart valve to keep him alive. This free operation performed at a new hospital in Soba is a triumph for Yagoub Toto Kafi’s mother and tribe who cannot afford it. One of the sad, poignant moments in Back Home Tomorrow, is when a mother with blood on her hijab,has to decide with her husband the fate of her son’s hand, choosing where to amputate. This is a decision no parent should have to make. The film also has times of reprieve with boys flying kites to boost their spirits, wheelchair races, looking at flowers in the hospital gardens, and Yagoub watching wrestling.

There are 3 million landmines, bullets and cluster bombs in the Kabul region, causing horrific injuries to many, mostly children picking them up as toys. This documentary illustrates the futility of war and a senseless landmine industry, from the children’s perspective. There is also discrimination against the Azara people, who are treated unfavourably. We see the friendship Yagoub finds in hospital with a 14 year old girl patient reassuring him there’s nothing to fear. Yagoub’s close male friend prays for him to live.The underlying lesson of Back Home Tomorrow is that war is pointless and innocents suffer needlessly. Without preaching, the film speaks for itself.