Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival

Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival is Africa's premier documentary event.

04 to 14 June 2015

The Visit

DIRECTOR: Michael Madsen | Austria / Denmark / Finland / Ireland / Norway | 2014 | 83min

If an alien space craft were to land tomorrow, what would we do, we citizens of Earth? Rather, how would our governments and international institutions react on our behalf? So begins this unique documentary of an event that has never happened, as scientists and politicians (from NASA, the UK government, to the UN’s Department of Outer Space Affairs) realise – that even if they’ve prepared for this moment in theory, nothing has readied them for the deepest soul searching of what is about to take place. How do aliens think? Do they come in peace? And what do they think of us? Seldom are our screens visited by a work as in love with imagination as it is with science, a fabrication that leads us on a spine-tingling journey of acceptance of the Unknown.

Festival Appearances

Sundance, Hot Docs, SXSW, Visions du Reel

Screenings at Encounters 2015

CT: Fri 5 6.30pm Labia | Tue 9 8.30pm CN V&A
Jozi: Sun 7 8pm CN Rosebank