November 16-17: Life Above All     (South Africa, Germany, 2010. 106 mins.)

    A Film by Oliver Schmitz

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLTclDqAxkw

The third film in the new season of Fringe Flicks is the acclaimed Life Above All,  that tells of Chanda, a young girl in a small, AIDS-ravaged South African township who manages to find joy in her childhood and to maintain the façade of a normal life amidst utter instability.

 In this stunning adaptation of Allan Stratton’s bestselling 2004 novel Chanda’s Secret, Khomotso Manyaka (in a breakout performance) plays Chanda, a young girl in a small, AIDS-ravaged South African township who struggles to maintain the façade of a normal life amidst utter instability: her stepfather is an alcoholic, her newborn sister has recently died, and her mother has now become afflicted with the AIDS virus. When the illness of Chanda’s mother’s becomes openly apparent the community turns against the family, interpreting it as a form of retribution for their sins. Winner of the Francois Chalais prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

This film is part of the annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival that presents ten feature films that inspire hope, confront oppression, seek truth, and demonstrate humanity’s will to defend their own rights and those of others.

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