STEYN DU TOIT
The second inaugural Cape Town Recovery Film Festival (CTRFF) has begun, featuring 18 films, the majority of which are South African premieres, with the aim of offering viewers a deeper understanding of the addiction recovery process, as well as what it means to live as a former addict.
"Battling with addiction can often be a very segregated experience. With the festival we hope to share stories and experiences around recovery - from alcoholism and drug use to other addictive disorders," says
co-organiser Dougie Dudgeon.
"With September being International Recovery Month, we wanted to make sure Cape Town had a significant related event. Our aim is to create a space where people in recovery can mix with their families and friends. A space where we can invite the curious to try and challenge the stigma around the disease of addiction and demystify the process of recovery."
A project of While You Were Sleeping - a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting documentary films with important environmental, social and political messages to local audiences - the festival is running at the Labia Theatre until Thursday, before moving to The Bioscope in Johannesburg from next Friday to Sunday. All screenings will be followed by Q&As or live music.
Three of pop culture's most familiar figures chronicle their life post-addiction in festival headliners, Russell Brand: From Addiction to Recovery, Super Duper Alice Cooper and Bob and the Monster.
Using the death of Amy Winehouse as backdrop, Brand's film is bold in its subject's openness about his own drug-fuelled past. Driven by a desire to better understand what it is that makes people addicts, Brand revisits his former rehab clinic and interviews patients there, thus giving viewers an understanding of addiction as a disease like any other.
"Kids on the lunatic fringe finally had a rock star that represented them," one of the people interviewed on Super Duper Alice Cooper says. This doc opera provides a fascinating look at a highly creative musician who became a cult idol, but also paints a graphic portrait of an artist who lost himself so much in his on-stage persona that he was dangerously close to destroying himself as a result of the alcohol and cocaine he turned to as refuge.
Described as "the least likely to become a phoenix" during Bob and the Monster, Bob Forrest has undergone an incredible transformation from 1980s heroin-enslaved Thelonious Monster frontman to one of the most prominent drug counsellors in the US today.
Apart from paying tribute to him as a highly influential musician, this hard-hitting documentary features testimonials from well-known musicians Forrest has helped over the years.
An international cult hit, How To Make Money Selling Drugs does exactly what its title promises and is another screening not to miss. It isn't afraid to make several sobering observations regarding the US War on Drugs campaign of prohibition. Several celebrities weigh in too.
The remaining international documentaries are The Hungry Heart, looking at the often invisible world of prescription medication addiction; Addiction Incorporated, which tells the story of former Phillip Morris scientist Victor DeNoble's quest to reveal the truth about nicotine addiction; Sober Indian/Dangerous Man, exploring the harmful effects of alcohol abuse on American Indian reservations; and Dear Albert, following a recovery consultant, Jon Roberts, over the course of three years.
Two Hollywood addiction-themed feature films have been included. One of the first movies to demonstrate Jack Lemmon's ability to go from cinematic light comedian to tragic everyman was Blake Edwards's Days of Wine and Roses (1962), a bitter-sweet portrayal of a relationship ending as a result of alcoholism. Released more recently, Richard Kwietniowski's Owning Mahowny (2003) stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a Toronto bank vice-president who resorts to stealing from his company to bankroll his gambling debts. It is screened alongside the short film Lapse: Confessions of a Slot Machine Junkie.
Three new local short films will make their debut courtesy of Reel Lives (www.reel-lives.org). The organisation provided the film-makers - all youth from marginalised communities - with the digital video production skills needed to tell their stories. Hailing from Grassy Park, 19-year-old Dylan Williams's Through the Smoke recreates the memories from "the night the fire took my home, my happiness,
my peace and my
15-year-old sister".
Following her journey to "the bottom" and her attempts to climb back "out of the hole I've dug for myself" is Siphokazi Mbuti's, 27, Umdovolo (The Gamble), chronicling the Gugulethu resident's addiction to a street game called, Calling Cards. The final local film in the Reel Lives trilogy is from Sunnydale resident Jascey Lee van Zyl, 22, called From the Basement. A former drug addict who used tik on a daily basis and became increasingly violent as a result, his film deals with how music saved his life after he had created and performed his own song at a popular hip-hop event in 2012.
Those making their way to CTRFF this weekend should also take advantage of its free screenings. Each will be followed by a facilitated discussion. They are The Anonymous People (Saturday, 2pm), challenging deeply-rooted social stigmas preventing recovery voices and faces from being heard and seen; Addiction Recovery and Yoga (Saturday, 4pm), followed by an appearance by BodyMind Vinyasa's Retief Sevenstr; and Free the Mind (Sunday, 12pm), looking at how the practice of mindfulness can help those suffering from post-traumatic stress and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders.
For schedules and to book call the Labia at 021 424 5927,
or visit www.capetownrecoveryfilmfestival.com for more information.