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SON OF MAN

JEZILE

By Mark DORNFORD-MAY

SPIER FILMS (LONDON) - as PROD

Drama - Completed 2006

- Year of production
- 2006
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- SOUTH AFRICA
- Duration
- 86 mn
- Director(s)
- Mark DORNFORD-MAY
- Writer(s)
- Andiswa KEDAMA, Mark DORNFORD-MAY, Pauline MALEFANE
- Cast
- Andile KOSI, Andries MBALI, James ANTHONY, Pauline MALEFANE
- Producer(s)
- Mark DORNFORD-MAY
- Synopsis
- In the state of Judea in southern Africa, violence, poverty and sectarianism are endemic. The neighbouring Alliance has invaded to restore ‘peace’ at gunpoint. Bloody street battles accompany the neighbouring dictatorship’s incursion into its weaker satellite. Promises of a transition to open democratic rule accompany summary executions and brutal massacres.
  As the civil war reaches a new level, a divine child is born to a lowly couple. As he grows and witnesses the inhumanity of the world he lives in, his angelic guardians offer him an escape to the heavens. He refuses. This is his world and he must try to save it from the work of evil men and from the darkness working through them.
  As an adult, he travels to the capital, gathering followers from the armed factions of rebels that crisscross the land. He demands that his followers give up their guns and confront their corrupt rulers with a vision of non-violent protest and solidarity. Inevitably, he attracts the attention of the Judean tribal leaders who have struck a power-sharing deal with the aloof Governor Pilate. The Son of Man must be brought down and destroyed. It should be another simple ‘disappearance’ like any other…
  Son of Man was filmed in the township of Khayelitsha and on the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This new and adventurous interpretation of the New Testament was filmed by Mark Dornford-May in collaboration with the pioneering Dimpho Di Kopane theatre troupe and choir network. As with his first film, U-Carmen eKhayelitsha– the classic Carmen opera translated into the Xhosa tongue—the original yet traditional dance, songs and rhythms infuse this film with the life and spirit that really cuts its own voice to speak.