Mandela8: Journey to South Africa – Liverpool’s Young Filmmakers Follow in Mandela’s Footsteps
More than 6,000 miles separate Liverpool from Cape Town, but for a group of young filmmakers from Liverpool 8, a journey to South Africa offered something considerably more meaningful than distance: the opportunity to encounter the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela in the country where that extraordinary story unfolded, and to discover what it might mean to a generation born into a very different world.
Their experiences have become Mandela8: Journey to South Africa, a documentary screening at the Plaza Community Cinema in Crosby on Wednesday 7 October as part of the venue’s Black History Month programme.
Seven young people, accompanied by three group leaders, travelled to Cape Town as part of a long-held Mandela8 ambition to allow a new generation to walk in Mandela’s footsteps. Inevitably, history formed an important part of that journey, but what emerged was about considerably more than visiting places associated with one of the defining political figures of the twentieth century. This was also an opportunity to meet South Africa as it exists today.
Working with youth organisation MOT South Africa, the Liverpool group met young people from Gardens Commercial High School, Silverstream School of Skills and Spes Bona High School. Conversations and activities explored leadership, courage and the challenges facing young people in different communities, allowing experiences to be compared across two cities and two continents.
That exchange feels particularly important. Mandela’s story can sometimes become fixed in history: apartheid, imprisonment, Robben Island, eventual freedom and the emergence of a democratic South Africa. Meeting young South Africans allowed the Liverpool group to encounter something less easily contained within textbooks and documentaries — another generation considering its own ambitions, difficulties and responsibilities within the country Mandela helped transform. And crucially, the Liverpool group took cameras with them.
Mandela8’s Young Media Group has always been about more than teaching the technical mechanics of filmmaking. Giving young people practical experience is important, but so too is giving them the confidence and opportunity to decide which stories matter and how those stories should be told. Journey to South Africa places those young voices at the centre rather than asking somebody else to interpret the experience for them.
And the Liverpool connection runs deep. Mandela8 itself grew from the response within Liverpool 8 following Mandela’s death in December 2013, when an impromptu memorial appeared at the Sunburst Gates of Princes Park. Members of the community gathered there to remember a man whose struggle against apartheid had resonated far beyond South Africa.
What followed developed into something much more permanent. Education, heritage and community projects kept the connection alive, eventually leading to the Mandela memorial and reflection space in Princes Park. But perhaps the more interesting legacy is the work that continues around it: taking Mandela’s story beyond commemoration and asking what values such as equality, courage, leadership and social responsibility might mean to younger generations. Taking young people from Liverpool 8 to South Africa feels like another chapter in that story. Bringing their film home completes the circle.
For the young filmmakers themselves, the Plaza screening represents another significant moment. Experiences that began thousands of miles away, recorded through their own cameras and shaped into a documentary, will now be watched collectively on a cinema screen. And afterwards, the audience will have the opportunity to hear from those involved through a Q&A.
That makes Journey to South Africa more than a record of where they travelled. It is about what they encountered, the people they met and the conversations that took place along the way. Most importantly, perhaps, it is about what happens when history is handed to another generation—not simply to remember, but to question, interpret and carry forward.
Mandela8: Journey to South Africa screens at Plaza Community Cinema, Crosby, on Wednesday 7 October. Doors open at 7.30pm, with an introduction at 8pm, the film at 8.05pm and a Q&A from 9pm. Admission is free, but tickets are required.
