The Kingdom of the Netherlands and District Six Museum present film screening exploring shared histories
Three short films interrogating South Africa’s colonial past and legacy of slavery to be screened on 31 October at the Avalon Auditorium, Homecoming Centre, Cape Town
On 31 October 2025, the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa, in partnership with the District Six Museum, will host a special screening of three short films that explore South Africa’s colonial history through the lens of art, memory, and cultural resistance. The screening will take place at the Avalon Auditorium, Homecoming Centre, Cape Town, from 18:00 to 20:15. Entry is free, but seating is limited and booking is essential.
The evening forms part of the Netherlands’ #cocreateIDENTITY programme, which supports South African cultural initiatives and Dutch–South African collaborations that address identity, heritage, and transformation.
Each film offers a unique perspective on the country’s layered past and its echoes in the present:
- Whispers and Shouts (18 mins), directed by Elise Fernandez, documents the CAPE X NL: Whispers and Shouts exhibition at the Camissa Museum. This collaborative project between Dutch and South African partners engages with the legacy of Dutch slavery in the Cape through archival material, art, and public memory. The film captures the exhibition’s resonance with local audiences and its transformation into a permanent installation at the Castle of Good Hope.
- WAT WAS HIE? (30 mins), a site-specific film directed and choreographed by Luke De Kock, retraces the erasure and resistance of indigenous San and Khoi peoples. Through embodied performance and poetic reflection, the film reclaims historical spaces impacted by slavery and colonial rule, posing the haunting question: What was here?
- Fugitives (18 mins), directed by Philip du Plessis, is a documentary produced by the Biography of an Uncharted People project at Stellenbosch University. Using forensic artistry and archival records, the film reconstructs the likenesses of enslaved individuals who escaped before the abolition of slavery in 1838. The project gives visual identity to lives once rendered invisible by the historical record.
A post-screening Q&A session with the filmmakers and project collaborators will offer audiences an opportunity to engage with the creative and historical processes behind the works.
EVENT DETAILS
Date: Friday 31 October 2025
Time: 18:00 – 20:15
Venue: Avalon Auditorium, Homecoming Centre, Cape Town (Buitenkant and Caledon Street)
Entrance: Free (booking essential)
RSVP: [email protected]
About #cocreateIDENTITY
An initiative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa, #cocreateIDENTITY supports cultural partnerships that address the legacy of colonialism, transformation, and identity through collaborative creative practice.
Full Synopsis
Whispers and Shouts documents the CAPE X NL: Whispers and Shouts exhibition at the Camissa Museum as it becomes part of the permanent museum in response to audience demand. This transnational, collaborative project of The Black Archives, Nancy Jouwe and Elise Fernandez, on behalf of the Camissa Museum, explores the legacy of Dutch slavery in the Cape through archives, memory, and art. Through works by Farren van Wyk, Carine Zaayman, Charles Palm, Adrian van Wyk, Bradley van Sitters, and Neo Muyanga, and with design by Nkosingiphile Mazibuko, we hear the echoes of those captured, punished, and silenced — and the quiet insistence of stories long withheld. The exhibition resonated deeply with visitors and showed the need for more opportunities to engage with this painful history. Fernandez captures its spirit within the Castle of Good Hope — the oldest colonial building in South Africa – and goes beyond the museum walls, carrying the story and conversation about the VOC Indian Ocean slave trade into new spaces and audiences.
WAT WAS HIE? is a site-specific cinematic journey that retraces the entangled histories of colonialism, indigenous erasure, and resistance in South Africa. Adapted from a multidisciplinary theatre performance, this evocative film moves through historically significant sites — reactivating these locations through movement and restorative memory. The film amplifies the often-silenced voices of the indigenous San and Khoi peoples, while confronting the brutal legacy of slavery under Dutch colonial rule. Through embodied reenactments and poetic reflections, WAT WAS HIE? asks a searing question — WHAT WAS HERE? — challenging viewers to confront the layered pasts that continue to shape the present. By retracing these hidden currents of history, the film becomes both an act of remembrance and a call to healing, inviting audiences to reflect on who we are and where we come from.
Fugitives is a documentary produced by the Biography of an Uncharted People project, a digital humanities project of LEAP (Laboratory for the Economics of Africa’s Past) at Stellenbosch University. The documentary focuses on the Fugitives portrait series within the broader exhibition and project. Forensic artists Kathryn Smith and Pearl Mamathuba from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) created a series of portraits from digital facial reconstructions of enslaved individuals. The portraits depict escaped enslaved persons in what is now South Africa in the period before and around emancipation on 1 December 1838. When enslaved individuals escaped, owners often placed a notice in the newspaper describing the runaway individuals’ physical features. These factual characteristics were used in the project to create reconstructions of the escaped enslaved individuals.
