‘Deeply moving’

Champeux, Porte and producer Jérémy Pouilloux knew immediately that they had material for a featurelength documentary. Their film opened to international audiences, garnering huge acclaim. It is a mix of animation, interviews and original video footage from the time of the trial.

“We did many Q&A sessions with audiences after the feature film and even though we knew it already, it was Walter Sisulu’s testimony that many people found deeply moving.

“They said they saw and heard Sisulu fighting hard in court. He was very brave and he had composure, but they didn’t know Sisulu because they had only come to know of Mandela,” says Champeux.

The VR animation exploits the 360° immersive technology. The drawings and animations were created by Dutch animation artist Oerd van Cuijlenborg. His charcoal and chalk drawings take the viewer into Judge Quartus de Wet’s courtroom, and music and 3D spatial audio complete the experience.

Champeux adds: “We didn’t want the viewer to be distracted from the audio, but Oerd’s drawings match the vinyl’s crackles and his drawing style matches the texture of the film.

“It’s also in black and white, so you feel the suffocation and claustrophobia of the courtroom and understand what it must be like to be a black person in that courtroom in apartheid South Africa,” he says.

The film moves through Sisulu’s life while faithfully following the audio recordings. It includes his time as a miner, the night classes he took in the township and, of course, his testimony in the dock. It’s powerful to experience Sisulu’s life, sacrifice and determined strategy in an entirely fresh format.

“It has been very satisfying to watch audiences. I’ve never seen someone take off the mask, they remain captivated,” says Champeux.

Accused #2 leads the way in a new direction for VR. It’s narrative-led immersive storytelling without a single dragon chasing you, or an assault of bright colours and noise, and you don’t have to fight off induced vertigo.

“The VR medium reinforces the emotions for the audience,” says Pouilloux. This platform coupled with “a story that resonates on a universal basis” has made Accused #2 a film that raises awareness of oppression and discrimination the world over, he says.

For Champeux, Sisulu’s testimony is about saying no to injustice: “Maybe it helps others see how Sisulu fought back in the dock, even though he knew it would make his

• An exhibition on Walter Sisulu, featuring Accused #2: Walter Sisulu, opened at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg on 22 November and runs until the end of March 2020

• This article was first published in newframe.com