NUORET LEIJONAT

Lähipäivien aikana kaupungista tuli verinen sotatanner, jossa teini-ikäiset taistelivat poliisin ja armeijan tankkeja ja aseita vastaan polttopulloja ja kiviä heitellen. Jäteastioiden kannet olivat ainoa puolustusväline.

Ohjaaja Khalo Matabane oli vasta lapsi tuolloin. Hän eli kylässä, jossa ei ollut sähköä, joten he eivät saaneet tietää sodasta mitään. Matabane sai kuulla kaikesta vasta kun hän oli töissä eräässä poliittisessa lehdessä.

Matabane etsi kolmet kasvot, ystävykset, jotka kuuluivat Nuoret leijonat -nimiseen järjestöön ja taistelivat eturintamassa. He piileskelivät yhdessä, he pelkäsivät kuolemaa yhdessä ja heidät kaikki pidätettiin.

Benito Lekalakala ja Bridgeman Sithole saivat virua vankilassa vuosia ilman oikeudenkäyntiä, mutta kolmas, Kenneth "Gorbatsov" Shai vapautettiin vain parin päivän päästä. Häntä epäiltiin ilmiantajaksi. Ystävyyden side katkesi.

Matabane altistaa kuvattavansa lähikuviin, eikä pienintäkään ilmeen sävyä voi kätkeä. Nämä miehet olivat kuuden päivän sodan aikoihin alle kaksikymppisiä poikia. Lekalakala on nykyään lakimies ja Sithole apartheidin vastaisessa liikkeessä mukana ja kunnon ammatissa. Kenneth Shai on työtön ja elää edelleen slummissa.

Kolme miestä kertoo perheistään, tyttöystävistään, ystävyydestä, yhteisön voimasta ja petturuudesta. Ajasta apartheidin aikaan ja ajasta nyt.

"Koko Etelä-Afrikan väkivaltainen historia tiivistyy pariin sanaan, kun haastattelin Kennethiä", kertoo Matabane The Sunday Times -lehden (12/99) haastattelussa. "Hän sanoi, että hänellä on arpia. Kysyin missä? Hän vastasi :"Sydämessäni".

• Ohjaaja: Khalo Matabane
• Tuottaja: Mail & Guardian Television, South Africa, 2000

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THE YOUNG LIONS

Bennito, a lawyer, wears a suit, drives a luxury car and lives in the plush suburbs of Johannesburg. Bridgeman, a career politician, leads a classically middle class existence; and Kenneth is unemployed, trapped in the wasteland created by the wrenching impact of the liberation struggle. Just twelve years ago, these three were inseparable, a tight-knit unit of young commanders in the tattered youth army.

In February, 1986, for six days, the township of Alexandra, outside Johannesburg, was ravaged by a bloody battle, during which the youth pitted themselves against the might of the state security forces. In the course of the war, it was reported that 22 policemen and 80 residents were killed, and over 300 injured. As always, no official figures were released. The Six Day War was hardly extraordinary, just another bloody moment in a protracted conflict which had come to characterize the very essence of South African society.

Every army has officers. In Alexandra, the commanding officers of the rag-tag army of youth was a group of seven activists, who throughout the 1980's moved through the streets of the township under the guise of night, sleeping together during the day in make-shift shacks and then moving on. They were a tight-knit group, trusting each other with their lives, the destiny of each relying entirely on the cohesion of the group. They themselves faced death on a daily basis. They carried the weight of responsibility for countless others' deaths on their shoulders. They witnessed firsthand to what depths humanity can sink

In Alexandra, it was these seven friends and comrades who rallied the youth against the formidable force of the apartheid military machine in February 1986. Bridgeman Sithole, Kenneth Shai, and Bennito Lekalakala were three members of this group. Throughout the 1980's the group were virtually inseparable.

In any other society, this might have been a gang of school-friends, twenty year-olds going to sports matches and comparing notes on girlfriends.

The three were all arrested by the apartheid security system in 1986. No-one really knows what happened and how much each said during their detention. Through a tragic course of events, Bennito and Bridgeman were led to believe that Kenneth had betrayed them under interrogation. Following their release, the three drifted, and the issue was never addressed. Today, to confront this issue is to revisit a period in their lives which for individual reasons, none of the three might normally choose to do. In one way or another, that experience dictated the course that each characters life was to take, and explains who they are today, and how they view their lives, their country and their futures.

The three have not seen each other for over a decade. If they were to meet, they might well have nothing to say to each other. Their lives have taken dramatically different courses, and they occupy dramatically different places in the post-apartheid order. This film is their story ...

The film will be located in the present - South Africa on the brink of its second democratic election. The election will provide the context for the entire film in that, although its outcome is pre-determined (the ANC has very little opposition), it will be a very interesting test of the ANC's support, which will be indicated by the amount of voter apathy surrounding the election.

Through the course of the film we will paint complex and textured profiles of the three characters - we will get to understand who they are in the world, what they do and how they feel. The contrasts between their lives will provide interesting social commentary and, in combination, we will be able to understand how the social and political fabric of contemporary South Africa works. But intercut with this material we will reconstruct the events of the Six Day War with the use of archive material and subjective accounts, constantly filling in information both about the experience of South Africa's youth in the 1980's and about the details of the three friends and what transpired between them. As the film progresses we will build a detailed picture of the subjective experiences of the characters contrasting different versions and memories with each other, and exploring the extent to which these perspectives have shaped the lives of the three characters in the present.

The film will climax with a meeting of the three characters, on election day (possibly as they arrive at the polls to vote). The meeting will not be significant insofar as what actually transpires between the characters, but its significance will lie in how far it goes to resolving the outstanding issues that each carries in their minds about the relationship and the events of the past, particularly the issue of the betrayal.

• Director: Khalo Matabane
• Production: Mail & Guardian Television, South Africa, 2000