WRENCH, NIGEL - ZA87

"The dusty streets of apartheid-era Soweto, July 27, 1987. The politically charged funeral of a young activist who fled South Africa to became a commander in the military wing of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Police await in armored cars. The funeral is restricted by specific government decree. The man being buried is Peter Motau, assassinated in neighboring Swaziland on the orders of South Africa's most notorious government-sanctioned killer, Eugene de Kock, orders carried out by his secret police unit in a bloody ambush. For De Kock and the apartheid government, Peter Motau was a terrorist. For the singing, chanting mourners at his funeral, he was a freedom fighter, a hero from the streets of Soweto itself. ZA87 is a raw audio document of one extraordinary day under apartheid. A father mourns, himself breaking the regulations declaring any political statements at the funeral illegal. Young activists, the "Comrades", sing in praise of the banned ANC's military wing, sire