The Showerhead. Director: Craig Tanner, South Africa, 99 minutes, English. It is not yet known when and on what platform it will be available.
Documentary premiered on 27 July at the Durban International Film Festival (South Africa) about the career and influence of South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, aka Zapiro. The film focuses on Zapiro's controversial cartoons during Jacob Zuma's presidential term, which some felt challenged the limits of free speech.
Synopsis:
The Shoverhead examines the work of cartoonist Zapiro, from his time as an anti-apartheid campaigner to his enduring role as a progressive commentator and free speech advocate.
A look at the scandal-plagued rise, reign and final removal of former president Jacob Zuma through its vignettes, which capture the problems of the post-Mandela period: corruption, subversion of the Constitution and the rule of law, and threats to freedom of expression.
The documentary examines freedom of expression in contemporary South Africa in relation to the limits tested in Zapiro's cartoons and his struggle against attempts to repress his relevant work.
Why did Zapiro draw Jacob Zuma with a showerhead on his head?
In 2006, Zuma was found not guilty and acquitted of rape charges in a controversial verdict. The showerhead over Zuma's head then became a recurring element in Zapiro's cartoons depicting Juma and alludes to Zuma's testimony during the trial about post-coital showers, which he wrongly claimed reduced the chances of HIV/AIDS transmission.
Jacob Zuma v Zapiro
South African president Jacob Zuma ended up suing a media group over this 2008 cartoon depicting him as a rapist in a gang rape scene in which 'Justice' appears as the person being raped. Furthermore, this Zapiro cartoon would go on to become his best-known cartoon and also one of the most plagiarised on the internet.
Zuma was demanding four million rand(about 446,000 euros) for defamation from the media, as well as one million rand from a former editor and the cartoonist, according to Eric van der Berg, a lawyer for the newspaper involved, the Sunday Times. But Zapiro did not cease to annoy Jacob Zuma, and even the ANC's women's league .
In July 2012, he again provoked anger after drawing Zuma as a large penis in a cartoon published in the Mail & Guardian newspaper .
