Cape Town - Ashley Kriel’s name has become synonymous with youth resistance against apartheid and the role young freedom fighters played for a free and equal South Africa.
Kriel made the ultimate sacrifice and a documentary by local film producer and director Nadine Cloete on Bonteheuwel’s revered liberation fighter and student activist will be screened on Monday.
Cloete said the film’s title, Action Kommandant, was inspired by the Struggle song Ashley Kriel would sing and also encouraged active citizenry.
“I had heard the name Ashley Kriel often while growing up. My dad worked as a history teacher and that really influenced me. I first saw archive footage of Ashley at Rainbow Circle Films and it just struck something within me that the story had to be told. The ‘why’ of telling the story was quite a journey,” said Cloete.
Kriel was born on October 17, 1966 in Bonteheuwel. Work on the documentary started in 2009 with the film premiering in 2016.
“Research was done by talking to many of his comrades and reading various literature about the time. I also have watched documentaries about similar subjects,” Cloete said.
Kriel was an active member of student groups such as the Bonteheuwel Inter-schools Congress and was key in mobilising the youth for school boycotts and protests.
At 18 years old, he went underground due to the heightened surveillance by the apartheid security police which had their sights on him.
He would go on to join the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Kriel went into exile on December 27, 1985 and received MK training in Kibashe, Angola.
Captain Jeffrey Benzien, a member of the Bonteheuwel unit of the Security Police, was granted amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the murder of Kriel on July 9,1987, and other apartheid crimes.
Kriel was just 20 years old at the time of his murder.
Other works by Cloete include a short documentary produced for Al Jazeera called The Last Speaker: South Africa’s dying language, highlighting the work done by the last N|uu speaker, Katrina Esau, and her granddaughter Claudia Snyman to preserve and promote the language.
Cloete’s Address Unknown won a South African Film and Television Award for Best Short Film in May 2021. The film looks at the friendships and forced removals in District Six.
“I’d like to encourage folks to tell the stories burning in their hearts,” she said.
The screening forms part of a collaboration by Surplus Radical Bookshop and the Institute for African Alternatives called the Our Africa Film series.
“Our Africa Film series highlights the contribution of African intellectuals and thoughts but also the work of African film-makers.
“So far, we have hosted films about Amilcar Cabral, Thomas Sankara, Chris Hani, Frantz Fanon and next, Ashley Kriel.
“We also hosted a film about the battle of Adwa, Adwa: An African Victory, by acclaimed Ethiopian director Haile Gerima about the Ethiopian resistance against the Italian invasion,” said Surplus owner Andre Marais.
The documentary will be screened at no cost at Bertha House, Mowbray from 6pm to 8.30pm. The screening will include a Q&A session with Cloete and guest, former police commander Jeremy Vearey.
