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ASIA PREMIERE |
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| The Choir |
| Australia / 2007 / 90 min / English |
| Michael Davie |
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| Synopsis |
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| Shot over six years, The Choir is about the music that unites Jabulani
Shabangu and a group of fellow inmates who are battling to survive in
South Africa's biggest prison. Jabulani is rebellious and angry until he
meets a wily bank robber named Coleman, who recruits him for the
prison choir. He rises in the ranks and leads the choir to victory at the
National Prison Choir Competition. But there is more going on here.
The brotherhood of choristers, along with Coleman's fatherly wisdom
transform Jabulani's life and give him the tools he needs to face his
victims and to survive behind bars, as well as in the world outside when
he is released. Jabulani's story is about the basic, powerful human
desire to rise above our circumstances and change our lives for the
better. |
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| Director's Biography |
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| Zimbabwean-born documentary filmmaker
Michael Davie started his career as a
television journalist in rural Australia. He got
hooked to travel and adventure and in 1998
hitch-hiked from Cape Town to Cairo while he
also filmed the African youth in the course of
this eight-month journey. The outcome was a critically acclaimed TV
series after which he worked with the National Geographic Television
in Washington D.C producing several award winning documentaries.
The Choir was shot over six years following the lives of inmates in the
choir at the Johannesburg's Leeuwkop Prison. |
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| The Rights Angle 2009 |
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| During apartheid, South African prisons were notorious for overcrowding, corporal punishment, and there was a high
level of secrecy around their operations. The South African Constitution however now upholds that every prisoner has a
right to human dignity enabling those serving their sentences to pursue socially responsible life following incarceration.
Recently, legal and institutional reforms have improved conditions in the country's 240 prisons which hold up to 200,000
inmates at a time. |
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Awards |
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Audience Award, Tri Continental FF,
South Africa |
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Print Source |
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Michael Davie / 2617 Woodley Place,
Washinton DC, 20008
michael@michaeldavie.com
818-613-8291 |
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