From ‘exorcism’ to engagement: the private sphere of perpetratorship in twenty-first century South African documentary film

Abstract

ABSTRACT Documentary film is one way people attempt to grapple with the aftermath of mass atrocity; most commonly, this has been done via victim-centric narratives. The twenty-first century has seen a shift in documentary film to also include but the perspective of the perpetrators of mass violence. In South Africa, this shift has temporally paralleled the country’s budding democracy, as well as the corresponding legacy of violence left by the apartheid regime. This article examines five South African focused documentaries using a framework which allows an exploration of the private and interpersonal aspects of perpetratorship, noting that the country’s official political process and vehicle for nation-building (namely, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) could not tell the whole story in its prescriptive and public nature, as well as in its temporal immediacy. Thus, this article is considering the role of perpetrator-focused documentary film within the South African social landscape, specifically the long-term and informal processes which may lead towards a potential for interpersonal reconciliation.