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Zaterdag is voor de doden

Short documentary, 2006, 50 min.

From a lucid angle, directors Niezen and Cotton visualise the uncontrollable AIDS problem in Africa. They follow two undertakers in Soweto, South Africa, who 'owe' it to the AIDS epidemic that their businesses are booming. Every week, some eight hundred dead are buried at Avalon cemetery alone. And always on a Saturday, really, because nobody can afford to take a weekday off. So, on Saturday, an alarmingly long procession of thousands of relatives and friends crowd round the graves and break into different songs at the same time. A staff member of KV Funeral Home anxiously wonders where this will end: 'Every week, we get closer to the fence. And we already have three full cemeteries.'
The filmmakers also register how many people react stoically to the catastrophe. Like two teenagers who are aware of the AIDS problem: 'There is a great deal of information. We know how you contract it. But nobody seems to worry about the future'.

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