You Chuse

Film

by Rehad Desai & Anita Khanna

Details

South Africa / 2008 / 50mins / Documentary / English

You Chuse is a documentary on the role of new media democracy movements in Africa. Using innovative remixing and reworking of various media sources, the film looks at wide-ranging initiatives from the Open Source Software movement and the use of such technology in the fight against AIDS in Malawi, to organizations like the Creative Commons and the attempt to bring a nuanced argument to debates around piracy and intellectual property. The documentary is an exploration of the problems and solutions to the ever broadening Digital Divide between rich and poor nations in the information age.

About the Directors

Rehad Desai

Rehad Desai is a former political exile from South Africa, who returned to his home country in 1990. Desai entered the television and film industry as a producer and director in 1996. In 1997, he completed his master’s degree in social history at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; he then completed a postgraduate degree in television and film production through AVEA in 2000. He runs his own film and television company, Uhuru Productions, which produces documentary and dramatic works. He is also the director of the Tri-Continental Film Festival, and is active in the self-organization of filmmakers. His 2014 documentary, Miners Shot Down, about mineworkers in one of South Africa's biggest platinum mines striking for better wages, won awards at several festivals including an International Emmy Award for Best Documentary and a Golden Horn Award for Best Documentary Feature.
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Anita Khanna

Born in India, Anita Khanna studied screenwriting in London before moving to South Africa in 2003. She heads up development at Uhuru Productions where she has scripted a number of the company’s documentaries including award-winning film Born into Struggle. Anita wrote, produced and co-directed Looting the Nation and You Chuse. She is the writer and producer of The Mating Game, a 13 part drama series for SABC. Since moving to South Africa with her partner, renowned documentary filmmaker Rehad Desai, Anita got involved with the local documentary film scene and together they launched the Tricontinental Film Festival (TCFF). In 2011 Anita took over as TCFF festival director as well as of Good Pitch, an event in partnership with the BRITDOC Foundation and Sundance Institute which brings filmmakers together with other interested parties to forge coalitions. Learn More