The Guguletu Seven (2000)

• 88%
• 2000
• Lindy Wilson

On March 3, 1986, seven young men are killed in an ambush by police in the suburb of Guguletu, Cape Town. Police pleaded that they were 'terrorists' and were so heavily-armed that arrest was impossible, They say that they had no option but to kill them all. A witness, however, sees a man shot with his hands up in the act of surrendering. This fact led to the extraordinary unravelling of the real truth ten years later by investigators of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. The journey of this film is as gripping and shocking as any detective story – and unfolds in that genre. The event distils a period when South Africa was chillingly close to a major civil war. Its universal message reveals with shocking reality what happens when power corrupts political systems and assassinates its opponents.