Film Screening: "Imam and I"

Thursday, February 12, 2015 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM EST
Johnson Center, Cinema

Londoner Khalid Shamis, son of a Libyan father and South African mother, finds little help in his search for identity. He returns to Cape Town on the trail of his famous grandfather, the influential 1960s Imam Abdullah Haron, and finds a mixed bag of prolonged cultural and political in-fighting. Haron was a divisive and unifying force in Muslim politics, championing the youth, but alienating many in the Muslim Judicial Council with his anti-Apartheid stance. Killed in police custody, there followed the predictable battle for his legacy and achievements.

As Shamis tries to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from legend, and contrivance from reality, a picture emerges of two complex characters compelling their contradictions, the story of a man and a time that shaped - and shattered - his family.

Held as part of Black/African Heritage Month 2015