24 May 2016 POPART LAUNCHES A FILM FESTIVAL The past year we established a public art festival in the City of Tshwane, Pretoria with the aim of bringing artistic excellence, socially engaged performances and visual art out of the theatres and galleries into public spaces. This year, we are launching Popart Film Festival (PAFF) in partnership with Gauteng Film Commission (GFC) and the workshop will materialize in a form of film screenings in public spaces around the City Of Tshwane and neighbouring townships; commemorating of 40th Anniversary of June 16 and engaging the community around a number of social issues related to diversity. We will have film workshops and screenings from the 16th -18 June 2016 as follows; • Daily Screenings& Workshops 12pm – 4pm: Hammaskraal, Mamelodi & Attredgeville (specific locations to be posted) • Evening Screenings & Panel Discussions (5:30pm -8pm) : Sunny Pak Mall The film screenings and panel discussions are themed #UnresolvedIdentity, and here it goes Various images of Pretoria are competing for supremacy in the minds of both its residents and outsiders. Many people still subscribe to the city’s historical image as a bastion of ethnic exclusivity and privilege, and the center of apartheid rule. Recent events including racism and hate speech in social media have highlighted that as a nation; South Africa has not yet fully addresses its history of racial division, and “othering”. Questions of privilege, structural racism, gender inequality and other issues related to diversity are powerfully at play in our society. PAFF aims to explore ideas around the imperative to decolonize public spaces, the role of the creative arts in provoking change, How can we as individuals transcend discrimination and prejudice? How can we come to realize the beauty and strength of our diversity? what is necessary to heal divisions and build an equitable and just society. The Festival is a development project and entrance to the activities is free to the public.