Look Who it Was Random video

The Screen as Memory. Albie Sachs about South Africa and Apartheid

286 views · Published 5 July 2015 · 27:53 · Indexed 1 November 2026

Channel: Eye Filmmuseum · 2015 · Film & Animation

Watch on YouTube

Documentation of an evening with Albie Sachs, organised in the context of EYE's exhibition 'If We Ever Get to Heaven', with installations by the South African artist William Kentridge. The son of two lawyers in Johannesburg, William Kentridge was exposed from his early years to images of the harsh social and political realities of South Africa. As a six-year-old, he came across photographs of the Sharpeville Massacre (1960), which his lawyer father Sydney Kentridge thought to have hidden.

The South African human rights lawyer Albie Sachs is the child of a union fighter who was defended by Sydney Kentridge. Albie Sachs is a lawyer, judge, writer, art lover and above all a freedom fighter. His activism has been brutally suppressed by solitary confinement and torture. In 1988, the military intelligence planted a bomb in his car. He lost his arm and sight in one eye, but not his combativeness. During his 25 years of exile, Sachs took part in the negotiations that led to the dismantling of the apartheid regime. After the release of Nelson Mandela, Sachs returned to South Africa, where he worked on the new Constitution.

Albie Sachs was interviewed in EYE by Els van der Plas, general director of National Opera & Ballet and former director of the Prince Claus Fund.

Prior to this talk, two films were screened: William Kentridge’s Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City after Paris (1989, 12') and Abby Ginzberg's Peabody Award-winning documentary Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa (2014, 84'). The last film highlights Sachs' efforts to uphold human rights, the rapid changes in South Africa and the difficult road to democratization.

 This event was made possible with support of Prince Claus Fund

More from this channel