The 2014 Cape Town Recovery Film Festival comes to town

Following the success of last year’s inaugural Cape Town Recovery Film Festival, 2014 sees the addition of feature films and locally produced short films as well as critically acclaimed international documentaries. This year’s event will include Q&A sessions with film makers and facilitated audience discussions around addiction and recovery issues.

25 September – 2 October

The Labia Theatre, Orange Street, Cape Town

The Cape Town Recovery Film Festival sets out to entertain as well as inform and educate, which is why we are delighted to add some live music, poetry readings and DJ’s to this year’s mix.

The Festival opening night (Thursday 25 September) will see the South African premiere of Russell Brand’s inspiring film From Addiction To Recovery. Brand is internationally recognised as a positive voice for addiction treatment and recovery, and this film aims to carry that positive message to as wide an audience as possible.

Other Festival highlights include:

• How To Make Money Selling Drugs, an exposé of the failed “War on Drugs” featuring Susan Sarandon, Russell Sims and David Simon.
• Bob and The Monster which charts the fall (to addiction) and the rise (in recovery) of rock musician Bob Forrest through interviews with rock ’n roll royalty Guns & Roses, Flea, Courtney Love, Anthony Kiedis and more.
• A special tribute screening of Owning Mahowny starring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as a gambling addict.
• Super Duper Alice Cooper, a highly acclaimed new film which documents the tortured and tumultuous relationship between Detroit performer Vincent Furnier and his alter-ego, Alice Cooper, an association that encompassed alcoholism, sobriety, success and failure, cocaine, crack, heartbreak… and finally resolution, acceptance and recovery!

• Addiction Incorporated, which reveals just how far the big tobacco companies have gone to push their wares on millions of addicted consumers.
• Sober Indian / Dangerous Indian, which explores the harmful effects of alcohol abuse on US tribal reservations.
• The world premiere of three short films – Through The Smoke, From The Basement and Umdovolo (The Gamble) –produced by young Cape Town filmmakers who have grappled with various forms of addiction and recovery in their own lives.

The complete programme is available on the official Festival website: www.capetownrecoveryfilmfestival.com.

Tickets for the Cape Town screenings can be reserved by calling the Labia box office (021 424 5927) or purchased online at Webtickets.co.za.

Tickets for the Johannesburg screenings are available from The Bioscope (www.thebioscope.co.za | 011 039 7306)

Festival Sponsors: Ixande, The Living House, Life Matters, Start2Stop UK and The Mews House, The Harmony Group, Prospect Hill Recovery Practice, Start to Stop SA, Faces and Voices of Recovery Southern Africa, Recovery Books, SMART Recovery, Hope House, Tharagay House, Rustenburg Addiction Care, Seascape House, SHARP Recovery Centre, Mark Emmerich.

Friends of the Festival: Jurgens Smits, Dr Rodger Meyer, Dana Tadmor, Debbie Bub, Dr Duncan Laurenson& Practice.

The Cape Town Recovery Film Festival is a project of While You Were Sleeping, a Cape Town-based non-profit collective committed to bringing progressive documentary films with important social, political and environmental messages to South African audiences. While You Were Sleeping is a registered South African Non Profit Organisation (NPO registration no: 137-167 NPO).