Rehad Desai

Director

Biography

South Africa

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.

Filmography

The Bank, the Bodybuilders and the Businessman (1998)
Has Socialism Failed Us? (2000)
Carlos Cardoso: An Independent Spirit (2001)
Dilemma (2002)
My Land My Life (2002)
The Untouchables (2003)
Death of a Bushman (2004)
Born into Struggle (2004)
Looting the Nation (2004)
Taking Back the Waves (2005)
Bushman’s Secret (2006)
The Heart of Whiteness (2006)
Bhambatha – War of the Heads 1906 (2007)
You Chuse (2008)
It Happened to Me (2008)
The Father Inside (2009)
The Battle for Johannesburg (2010)
The Weather Gods (2011)
COP17: An Activists Diary (2011)
Smoke in the Sky (2011)
Permission to Stay (2011)
Miners Shot Down (2014)
Strike a Rock (2017)
Everything Must Fall (2019)
How to Steal a Country (2019)

Films Curated by AFF