MK: Mandela’s Secret Army
New York African Film Festival 2024
May 8 - 14, 2024
The story of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress, is told through the experiences of several generations in this documentary, an intergenerational reflection on the all-consuming call to take up arms for South Africa’s liberation. Preceded by Ngozi Onwurah’s Neighborhood Alert.
Q&A with Ngozi Onwurah
MK: Mandela’s Secret Army chronicles the lives of former members of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress. The documentary is an intergenerational reflection on the all-consuming call to take up arms for South Africa’s liberation, heeded by young men and women—some barely in their teens—who gave up their lives and any future to risk death for the dream of a free South Africa. The young guerilla fighters of yesteryear are now aging veterans. How will history remember them? Where are they now, and how have they reconciled a past committed to liberation with a present-day reality that their contribution to a free South Africa has almost been forgotten?
Preceded by
Neighborhood Alert
Ngozi Onwurah, 2024, U.S., 30m
North American Premiere
Inspired by a true story, Neighborhood Alert tells the story of a Black mother that is forced to take extraordinary action in order to ensure the safety of her teenage son.
Co-presented with Africa is A Country
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