‘Survival of the fittest’: ‘God’s Work’ brings complexities of the homeless to JFF [VIDEO]

‘God’s Work’ portrays a stark view of homeless life in Durban – drug addiction, police violence, exploitation by politicians, religious platitudes and do-gooders. Picture: Supplied God’s Work, the uncompromising South African feature directed by Michael James, has been selected to screen at the eighth edition of the Joburg Film Festival (JFF), which takes place in Sandton from 3 to 8 March. Set within an abandoned inner-city building in Durban, the critically acclaimed film confronts homelessness – not as abstraction, but as lived economic exclusion.

Lauded as a “masterpiece of integrity” that blends docu-fiction with raw, emotional storytelling, one can’t help but recall the horrors exposed by the tragic Usindiso building fire, which claimed 77 lives in August 2023. The Citizenpreviously reportedon the alleged arsonist, Sithembiso Mdlalose, labelling the hijacked building in Johannesburg’s CBD a “slaughterhouse” of dead bodies. The 31-year-old shared the grim details of how he had beaten and choked a resident of the hijacked building to death while high on drugs at the behest of a Tanzanian drug lord.

InGod’s Work, drug addiction, alongside hunger, fractured memory and systemic neglect, shapes the interior and exterior worlds of five men pushed beyond society’s margins. Stark social realities collide with surreal psychological landscapes, creating a film that resists easy categorisation. Director of the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Ismail Mohamed, wrote inhis review of the film: “God’s Workgoes far beyond being another attempt to raise our awareness about the complexities of homelessness.

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“The film is a masterpiece in its artistry and authentic in its integrity. It is a marvel in its cinematography, meditative with its musical score and hypnotically creative about how it draws you into both the dangerous world and the fragmented lives of the men. “The film is a celebration of how five men, discarded by society, cling on to human dignity to piece their lives together for themselves and for each other.”

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