Screen black, sound of rain

10:00:02:00  blue line

Fade in picture

10:00:30 In front of Johannesburg railway station

Written text, before title appears:

10:00:08 Eine weiße Zeit der Dürre/                                 

  A dry white season/

In der kleinen weißen Republik/                 

in the small white republic/

Aber nach sieben Jahren Trockenheit /

but after seven years of  drought/

fällt Regen /                                                                                   

  rain falls.    10:00:22

Title

  10:00:28 Memories of Rain

Views from the Underground

In front of station: Skyscrapers, rain, people hurrying with umbrellas.

Kerkorel song.

English/German translation of the afrikaans song:

10:00:43

Regen fällt auf Stacheldraht/

Rain falls on barbed wire 

Regen fällt auf die Berge/                                     

Rain falls on the mountains

Regen fällt auf die Täler/                                       

Rain falls on the valleys

Der Regen wird zum Fluß /                               

The rain becomes a stream

Der Regen wird zum Strom /                           

The rain becomes a river

Der Regen wird zum Meer /                               

The rain becomes a sea

Komm, Regen.../                                                                       

Come, rain....

As above

10:01:12 Close up people with umbrellas, hurrying

Sifiso Off 

10:01:04

I would say that, you know, people are trying very hard to put the past behind them, you know,-  ja, you know,to put the past behind them and  forget it,

  10:01:12 and try to get on with their normal lives again, pick up the different pieces of their shattered lives and – build.

Sifiso on

Sifiso On

10:01:26 Sometimes I - - think of these things and become very very agitated - I feel like exploding. 10:01:34

10:01:35 Umbrellas, people

10:01:40  People under umbrellas, moving towards and away from camera

Sifiso Off 

10:01:35 So in a way you do have a community you know consisting of walking time-bombs, people could explode at any time,

Sifiso On

10:01:46 So..one hopes that these things would gradually get out of one’s mind ; I am not so sure if I am not deluding myself, you know, by reasoning along those lines but - - what else can one do?

10:02:05

Rain falling on stone tiles:Directors credits

10:02:010 Directors names

Ein Film von                                  a film by

Gisela Albrecht                            Angela Mai

10:02:18  Street scene, crowds

Narrator

10:02:20

Johannesburg 1994

Angela und I have returned

to the new South Africa,

to remember the old one.

To recall the days of apartheid

and to document

the experiences of the people

who had fought in the underground

for this new South Africa.

10:02:37

10:02:37 Fade in  archival scene of people, almost as silhouettes moving in slow motion toward camera

10:02:42  Second similar take

10:02:47 Township houses, smoke

10:02:53 Police on road, people passing between them

10:02:43

The bleak days of repression –

The time when resistance had waned -

-                  the 60s and early 70s-

The South African writer Njabulo Ndebele

remembers this time in a text

which he wrote at the beginning of the 90s,

after his return from exile:  10:02:58

10:02:59  Fade in train crossing landscape

long shot, gradually getting closer

10:03:16 Engine     close

Quotation Ndebele:  10:03:01

„One of my most abiding memories

of the old South Africa

is the memory of what distance and time

really meant when travelling...

that distance was something

  to endure

in constant fear of being stopped

and questioned on one‘s right to exist.

No journey was ever made with the

certainty of reaching one‘s destination.

Engine Nothing existed between

the beginning and end of the journey

10:03:27 Close up blade of rain-wet grass, in background train

10:03:37 fade out to black screen,

But mental and emotional trauma.“

10:03:29

10:03:39 Fade in archival photo Soweto 1976:

Schoolchildren demonstrating

10:03:44 Hector Petersen is carried to a car

10:03:48  Coffins being carried to funeral

Narrator:

10:03:41

Soweto 1976 –

The uprising of black youth,

Hector Peterson,

the first child shot and killed,

a time of victims,

of never - ending burials.  10:03:52

10:03:54 Photo Gisela holding tape-recorder to take atmo

10:03:59 Soweto Photo: burning police car

10:04:02 Police stand around corpse.

10:04:05  A policeman holding a   poster, pan down to body

10:04:09 Reporter  with camera

10:03:54 That was the time

when I first came to South Africa,

charged as a journalist  with documenting

the voices of long-muzzled resistance.

The time when, as I walked, stunned,

through a Soweto scarred by unrest

I tried to understand what I saw.

10:04:11 Photo Angela with Biko poster in demonstration

10:04:18 Photo Angela  pointing, next to banner

  10:04:11 For Angela, a South African,

it was different.

It was her country, she belonged.

And she‘d long been a link

between the South African opposition

and the solidarity scene in Germany.

10:04:24

10:04:25 Photo: Zoom towards soldiers standing by transporter, kneeling to shoot

10:04:28  Photo: policeman in car with gun

10:04:31 Mayibuye archival  footage:

Police shooting out of back of transporter

Shot. Picture freezes.

10:04:41 Fade out

10:04:26 On the 16^th June, police fired on

schoolchildren peacefully demonstrating.

After the first 3 days of the uprising,

hundreds lay dead on Soweto‘s streets.

This marked the turning-point.

10:04:38

10:o4:44 fog over landscape, barbed-wire fence

10:04:52 Mountain in fog

10:05:00  Mountain slope in rolling mist

  10:04:46 Sihle Off

It’s not an easy thing to leave your country,

to leave your friends – family – and venture into the unknown....