Encounters 2021: I Am Here (with Q&A)

Every year since our founding in 2010, The Bioscope has proudly hosted screenings of The Encounters Documentary Film Festival. Always a highlight in our calendar, the festival returns this year with limited physical screenings at The Bioscope from 11-20 June. Tickets are R70. For more information on the festival as a whole, please visit encounters.co.za

I AM HERE (with Q&A)

Directed by: Jordy Sank. (South Africa). Dur: 1h 13 mins.

This powerful film offers a portrait of 98-year-old Polish Holocaust survivor Ella Blumenthal, whose vibrance and vitality has not been dimmed by either age or the weight of the terrible events she has endured. As Ella recounts her experience of the Holocaust, the corresponding events are rendered in sensitively drawn animation. The film follows Ella, who was a young adult at the time, from her happy life as a Polish teenager to the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto and on to Auschwitz, where she narrowly escaped the gas chambers. At a time when Holocaust denialism has gained fringe legitimacy, this is an important film and a counter to those who deny the horrors of history. In documenting Ella’s narrative of survival and transcendence, the film provides a viscerally personal account of an historical event that is all too easily abstracted into ideology.

COVID POLICY AND PROCEDURE.

The new Bioscope location is set to be a 47 seater cinema. We are however selling far less in order for there to be space to sit apart from other members of the public. We ask you to please keep your mask on the entire time within the cinema premises. Drinks and snacks will be on sale and can be consumed during the film, but please consider those around you when your mask is off for this. 44 Stanley is largely an open air shopping centre, and The Bioscope has a great outside space directly outside the cinema that public can make use of. Within the cinema, we will also make use of temperature reading, air filtering, and constant cleaning to make sure that The Bioscope remains a safe and hygienic experience.

After purchasing tickets, if you experience any COVID related symptoms, or come into contact with anyone who has tested positive, we ask you to please not attend the screening. Please understand that The Bioscope will not be able to refund you this ticket. We are happy however for you to give your ticket to someone else that can attend. If this is not possible, we would be happy to exchange your ticket for a future screening/event. This can all be coordinated via email at [email protected]