Filmaker Rehad Desai takes on us an intimate journey mapped out by the scars
etched into his family's life from having a father who was intensely
involved in politics. Barney Desai was political hero during South Africa's
struggle for freedom, yet as a father he was damagingly absent emotionally.
Rehad spent most of his young life in exile and became politically active
himself. On this intensely personal journal into his past, Rehad realises he
maybe following in his fathers own footsteps as he reviews his relationship
with his own estranged teenage son.

DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Born into Struggle illustrates how my life in South Africa is an experience of ten years of freedom. The story is in essence a father/son story covering three generations, my own 17-year-old son included. The film shows the mirror, the love, the opposition, the aggression, and conflict involved in a father/son relationship. The setting combines to create a political and at times highly emotional world.
In 1963, my father, Barney Desai, 'a dangerous communist' fled into exile. My mother, pregnant with me, began her labour under harsh questioning by the security police. At 9 months I was exiled to England. Later, my father would remind me that I was born into struggle, that a life of politics was my destiny.
By 1966 Barney had joined the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, an avowedly militant organisation. In exile, my parents began to slide into alcohol dependency. Family dysfunction largely contributed to a pattern of drug dependency amongst my siblings. My parents and Barney in particular, instilled in us a sense of duty and belonging to South Africa. High levels of racism in Britain led us to believe we were South African, drummed home by our parents, whilst in reality we had become Black Britons.
My father and I had a special relationship both devoting our lives to the struggle. Yet as my political identity formed our differences began to emerge. As an adolescent I threw myself into fighting against racism and capitalism. My father had come to believe that Apartheid could be successfully be usurped by a caring capitalism. In contrast I held that Apartheid could and should be replaced by a socialist society. We returned to South Africa together in 1990 at different points of our respective political journeys. In my mind he became the pragmatist and I the idealist.
More comfortable culturally with progressive whites but politically more akin to black Africans, I became aware of how British I was. My fathers' political stature constantly reminded me of the responsibility that went with the name. I launched myself into far left politics and mass struggle while Barney found himself leading a militant liberation movement.
Back in England, my son suffered a similar experience of racism and lack of paternal attention. His need to belong, led him at 16 to leave his mother and join me in South Africa in 2001, closely followed my British born younger brother who 'came home'  to develop his identity and heal his drug addiction.
My father killed himself through drinking in 1997.  His death sent me into clinical depression. I came out the other side and left organised political activity and entered TV as a current affairs journalist. It led to a meaningful self -appraisal and significant life changes. As a filmmaker, I remain rooted in oppositional politics. This led to my arrest at the recent World Summit of 2002 in Johannesburg. In his death, the shadow of my father had been lifted; I was free to follow my own path. But in the context of new South Africa, how free am I? Am I just another exile fighting to get his share of the limited resources available? Is there room for political dissent in a country consumed by its rainbow nation status?

THE STORY
The central premise of this story is that personal is also the political and the political in this case is also personal. Its starting point is the 'I' rather than the we. It is a small story, that through it smallness intersects with the larger universal issues, of  father and son, identity, belonging, race and social change. The strength of the piece is that there is sufficient dramatic tension in the family story for it hold, which provides the room for the larger backdrop of South African liberation to unfold. In short it is a story about the immense consequences of apartheid on a family that was and partly remains stationed many thousands of miles away. It is a story that sees personal expectations of the new South Africa being tempered by the sacrifices of the past, and vice - versa the former reality of a low wage developing capitalist economy tempering expectations of a social contract.

CINEMATIC FORM
We have shot and will continue to shoot all family interviews with two cameras' to sustain pace. The abundant personal photo and home video archive combined with the public archive of my father and myself engaged in politics will carry a number of the segments through, which combined with cinema verite provides a rich texture and intimate portrayal of a family whose existence is tied up with the country.
This type of film represents a new combination of investigative journalism and poetic reflective strategy with a heavy use of multi - layered, archaeological' montage combined with a very subjective, personal story. I seek to explore the psychology - the back stage - of the national liberation movement in exile, at home and in power through my family archive and liberation imagery, whose pre 1990 image often compares well to its erstwhile soviet supporter.
The strength of such an approach is that the aesthetic form underlines the story and theme of the film. The feeling of a complex reality cannot be united into one linear story or simple journalistic conclusion.  It is as attempt to move beyond the rationality and obvious surface of things to deeper levels of emotions, feelings and dreams through a dense and complex montage aided by emotional and symbolic music.
Born will fulfill at the same time all the necessary pre - requisites for being a journalistic, historical and high informational value and documentation. But it retains its poetic and emotional dimension with a demanding reflexive aesthetic and rhetorical structure that undermines naïve objectivity and straightforward epistemic authority and voice. It is mixture of a social look on social reality; a project of truth, and it is a subjective and poetic look on identities, emotions and experiences behind the historical reality.
Born is a very emotional story and search for a door a hidden truth, but a much more personal truth and story, with one of the directors (Said) in search of his unknown father. It is a dramatic and highly subjective film with the director forcing himself to pursue the subjective truth, resulting in all kinds of Meta commentaries and moments of doubt and identity crisis. It is a psychological travel back from repression to insight; a filmic voyage that from time to time seems to go into the direction of very exhibitionistic docu -soap. The journey in part is about my father who was missing in the abstract, in his role as a father but very present as a politician, freedom fighter and public figure. While Born might feel like it's made in a very spontaneous way  - the director and its participants are the objects of constant mirroring effects and interpretations.
The research and journey is grounded in the familial suicide and will be dealt with as a sensitive, traumatic event. The montage will shift between functional and informational sequences that present events and meetings between the main character and his family often very dramatic and intense, emotional moments where his search reach a climax and sequences where the process and filming or the project itself is in focus, creating a reflexive poetic dimension and psychology identity play. The film will use apparently non-functional images that are in fact emotional and symbolic marks and signs the bridge the divide the films external social side from its deeper psychological and existential layers. In short they function as psychological messages from the subjective dimension of the film.
Born into Struggle is an attempt combine many layers of style, expression, narrative and rhetorical strategies. In doing so it will remain an import contribution to South African Cinema that is inspired by two recent Danish documentaries, Saif's award winning Family and Gialsons Maximum Penalty   

CHARACTERS
The main character of this film is myself. Its focuses on my journey into manhood, an endpoint tied up with my relationship to my father both of which are intertwined with South Africa's journey towards liberation. Unlike my siblings I entered political activity and later university, I followed in my fathers footsteps, which in hindsight was largely tied up with the importance I attached to his approval. 
There are six central characters in this film - all of them being my immediate family. My mother, Rose, my younger brother, Che and my sister. Rehana, who is slightly older than myself feature prominently.
Exile changed the course of my mother, Rose's life beyond what she could have imagined. The trauma of exile and its loneliness led her to follow my father in bouts of heavy drinking, which helped her cope with the swings between being emotionally closed down and uncontrollable feelings of sadness. All of her sons, including myself found it near impossible confiding our emotions in her, and this continues today - the silences regarding our relationship to her speak to this. But she has warmth and earthiness and a great sense of humor. She showed her love through her cooking and cleaning up after us; her humor comes through making light of the desperate situation she found herself in. All of this comes through in the material we have shot to date.
Che, my younger brother born in the midst of our mother's turmoil and felt neglected from a very early age. He suffered from pyschosomatic illness at the tender age of 7 he believed was a result of this neglect, which my mother refuses to comment on. He became a drug dealer while still in his teens and later a drug addict. He left home at the age of fifteen and went to leave with my sister. Whilst interviewing him during research for this documentary he broke down a number of times. He decided that we he would join my oldest sibling, Zivia and I in South Africa for a few months to try and break his addiction. We follow him in South Africa coming to terms with himself and then back in London a few months later - does he succeed?  He is articulate, open, determined and full of emotion. He tells of his unresolved relationship with our father, his hate, his love and his understanding of his own and my fathers' addiction. While shooting verite with him he brings humor into the piece.
Rehana, features prominently as she again is able to recount the emotional trauma of exile on camera herself. She felt denied of her extended family and tells of two episodes from her life, which are extremely touching. Rehana manages to recount these episodes with clarity whilst she struggles with her tears. Unlike the rest of us - she is 'normal' in the sense she never had a drug or drink problem or any hang severe hang ups concerning her parents. She leads a stable life with a husband and two 15-year-old twins whom she intends returning with back to South Africa. 
Rustum, my older brother speaks volumes with his silence and his generally manic behaviour. He is an alcoholic, but largely in denial about his disease. He to felt unloved by our father and went into a psychotic breakdown after my fathers' death. He gave up drinking, but replaced this with drinking. We captured him at home - reunited with his two teenage children and their mother. Since filming he has been forced to leave his family once again due to alcohol and drug abuse.
Zivia, my oldest sister is rather closed emotionally and superficial on camera. She borders on hero-worshipping my father and is rather protective of my mother.  She tends towards binge drinking; she acted as a surrogate mother to Che. We capture some tense moments of them together on Che's arrival and his refusal to go into a rehabilitation clinic. I intend to spend some days filming her, myself and mother interacting in Cape Town during this Christmas.
Ravi, my son. I have shot considerable verite with Ravi. His possible presence in the film provides an opportunity to be able to reflect on repeating learnt patterns of parenthood - which exposes my personal flaws - and to explore different notions of parenting. My concern is that an indepth look at this may possibly unnecessarily clutter the film.
 
SCENARIO - NARRATIVE STRUCTURE:  ESTABLISHING THE STORY
We hear from Nelson Mandela what an erudite speaker and competent leader he was, what a fine journalist and editor he was - we all read his paper because we could learn new ideas from it.
My Mother in London - explains how she broke water with me while being interrogated as to Barney's whereabouts.
Ship leaving from Cape Town - arriving in England. Photos of family on board HMS Pretoria. My Mother tells about her extreme difficulties of trying to settle into England, after being wrenched from her ten sisters and 4 brothers.
Rehana - my sister - recounts how the worst time in those early years was Christmas day - has my mother used to cry all day.
Che - my British born brother - recounts how our father from the age of 14 refused to acknowledge him for ten years after he found a considerable amount of marijuana in his bedroom.
Rustum - my eldest brother - explains that his father was never there for him not interested in being there when it counted - at school evenings, football matches or when I needed a loan.
My Mother- -explains 'you're father expected much more from them education wise and they were not interested. So he just gave up on them. But if they wanted to study and go for it he would be there for them.
My Uncle - Amin - I think that the consequences were devastating as far as his personal life was concerned; you must remember that this man had a family, he had children and a wife and his duty was towards his wife and his children. Now there are many that would argue that he deserted his wife and children in the time of need but that must be seen in relation to what he was busy with and the struggle that he was… I admire him for that. That his children suffered, that other people's children did not suffer, that I suppose was a conscious decision that Barney had taken. That somebody had to have the guts, that his children suffered, that is …in my opinion is not a fault of Barney. If the government of the day had not turned him to that…was it necessary for him to leave his children and his wife, it wasn't necessary, he would have been…he was a family man, I know, he loved children he loved his family, but the circumstances were such that he had no alternative.
 
BIOGRAPHY - REHAD DESAI
On his return to South Africa Rehad became a media and training officer for the South African trade union movement. He then worked in HIV prevention, before entering the world of film and television as a producer/director in 1997 after completing a  Masters Degree in Social History. Starting his career as TV journalist he moved onto both direct and produce numerous award winning documentary films through Uhuru Productions in Johannesburg, his own company. In addition Rehad produced  Down to Earth, a four x one hour studio based chat show , profiling Africa's viewpoint on the World Summit in 2002. The show was broadcast to 9 African countries.  He is an Executive Director of the 3 Continents Film Festival and a board member of the regional film makers' organisation, SACOD and the convenor for the United Producers Initiative in South Africa.

Filmography:
TAKING BACK THE WAVES - Producer 52 -75min. Uhuru Productions SABC 2, National Geographic 2005:  A documentary about sport - surfing and apartheid in the present and past through a champion SA surfer and his family.
BORN INTO STRUGGLE - Producer/Director 52- 75min Uhuru Productions , YLE 2, SBS Australia, TV2 Denmark, NRK Norway, RBTF Belgium, SABC1, BBC3, Jan Vrijman Fund, Africalia, NFVF, European Union CWCI, Fond Image Afrique, Mott Foundation  2004.  A personal documentary about the filmmakers relationship to his well known father, a leader in the South African liberation movement, set against the backdrop of the struggle for South Africa and the transition to democracy.  Encounters Documentary Film Festival 2004. Best South African documentary Audience Award . Apollo Film Festival South Africa 2004 - Winner.  World Cinema Festival Cape Town 2004 - Winner
LOOTING THE NATION - Producer/ Director min., Uhuru Productions 31min TVM, SIDA 2004
A look at the privatisation of the Mozambican banking sector, its privatisation and subsequent looting paid for the by the state. And its connection to the murder of Cardoso and Siba - Siba Makwakua
DEATH OF A BUSHMAN - Producer, 24 min Uhuru Productions screened on  SABC3 special assignment 2004. An investigative current affairs that looks at the murder of well known tracker and community leader by the local police. Voted best Special Assignment 2004
MY LAND MY LIFE -  Director/ Exec Producer  52min Uhuru Pictures and Ice Media, SABC1, SBS, RTP. NPS, NGK, RTE 2002 . A social documentary that looks at life on an occupied farm in Zimbabwe as a microcosm of present day society divided between town and country. Seen   through the eyes of three characters, a war veteran, a farmer and farm worker.
 DILEMMA - Producer/ Director 52min. Uhuru Pictures, SABC 3, SBS, 2002.
A personal documentary that looks at the prospect of my six year old son relocating to Austria  following the  rise of the far right in Austria, and traces the harrowing story of an asylum seeker.
A MINERS TALE - Producer, 40 min. Dir Nic Hofmeyr and Gabriel Mondlane Cool/Uhuru Pictures. Steps for the Future. Broadcast internationally 2002. A narrative documentary that follows a Mozambican HIV positive gold miner working in South Africa back to his village in Southern Mozambique where he discloses his status to his wife and head of clan.   
CARLOS CARDOSO: AN INDEPENDENT SPIRIT - Director/Co-Producer 33 and 26 min Cool/Uhuru Pictures. Open Society, UNESCO April 2001. Broadcast RTP, SABC1, SABC Africa, RTE, TV Mozambique . A portrait of a controversial left wing journalist from Mozambique who was slain for his investigative and campaigning work. 
HAS SOCIALISM FAILED US- Producer/Director - 26 min. Uhuru Pictures -Film Resource Unit 2000. A political documentary that explores the tensions and examines the historical relationship between the SACP and its alliance partners, the ANC and the trade union federation Cosatu
THE BANK, THE BODYBUILDERS AND THE BUSINESSMAN - Producer/Director 26 min. Uhuru Pictures Special Assignment SABC3, 1999. An investigative film that looks at the secret workings, past and present of the South African Reserve Bank.
MAIN REEF ROAD  - Associate Producer, 52 - 85 min Dir. Nic Hofmeyr,. Soros Documentary Fund, Department of Arts and Culture. Licensed to etv  (South Africa), Media Park (Spain) and to National Geographic Channels Worldwide. Screened at IDFA 1998. Down To Earth Talk Show 4 X 52 min. 2002 Producer World Summit studio based broadcast internationally Uhuru Pictures and Seipone
BUSH DOCTOR - A 52 min Producer. A documentary that looks at the exploitation of the intellectual property rights of the San Tribe in South Africa by Pfizer, the concessions gained and the consequences thereof. Supported by YLE, TV2, SBS, Ikon, ZDF-Arte, SABC1, NFVF, EED
 
In Development:
FEATURE FILM - THE GUN AND PEN
A coming of age- father -son story set in Mozambique.