Wild Coast Warriors

I felt that the documentary reeked of a white saviour complex, and has a bias slant on the legal events surrounding this film. The Amaphondo were painted as simplistic, peaceful natives- and the film skated around the hardship of rural living and poverty. It seems like resources where provided to the community by the NGOs and their involvement in the case did not seem authentic.

The film ignored the dysfunctional societies that the indigenous people live, in governed by tyrannical rulers like the imprisoned murderous Dalinyebo who ruled these communities with an iron fist. African spiritually and community was weaponised by Greenpeace and the LRC to back their environmental case against Shell- because they realised that they had little scientific evidence against the company.

The white people shown in the documentary who marched against Shell in Sea point didn't do so because of the Amaphondo- they did so because of the cute dolphins and whales. These NGOs would not have given two hoots about these poor communities, if their 'indigenousness' could not have been weaponized for their court case. According to this documentary, apparently the community must behave like good natives and not want for things like German cars and things that the white saviors themselves own.

The main characters in Wild Coast Warriors, Nonhle Mbuthuma and Sinegugu Zukulu won the Goldman Environmental Prizes for 2024, nicknamed the "Green Environmental Nobel Prizes." They both were also awarded the Burning Planet Heroes of the Year accolade from the Daily Maverick newspaper in South Africa on Christmas day, 2024.

Wild Coast Warriors was selected as the Best Feature in the Environmental & Cultural category at the Pakistan International Mountain Film Festival 2024. Wild Coast Warriors, has also been awarded the Best Feature Documentary award at the Hill Film Festival in Bangladesh. This film had its World Premiere at the 26th Encounters International Documentary Film Festival and the first two screenings were sold out. It was nominated "Best of the Fest." Wild Coast Warriors has been judged an Award Winner (Best Documentary Feature, November season) at the International Guadalajara Film Awards in Mexico and nominated for the Best Feature Doc at Madrid Indie Film Festival Awards in Spain, it has been selected as a winner of the IMDb qualifying seasonal competition of Montreal Independent Film Festival, as the Best Environmental Film, given an honorable mention at the Lookout Wild Film Festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA.

Pippa Ehrlich, director of "My Octopus Teacher," said "Wild Coast Warriors was a critical story about the power of community advocacy, and a warning to big corporations that there is strength in the voices of vulnerable people who are connected to and dependent on their land."

"Wild Coast Warriors" is an immersive, entertaining and deeply captivating documentary that masterfully captures the many complex power dynamics at intersection of environmental and social justice. It does so by following the engaging battle of South Africa's coastal communities as they challenge the oil giant Shell in a David vs. Goliath court case.

By masterfully highlighting indigenous rights, community advocacy, and the fight for protecting biodiverse ecosystems, it offers a blueprint for future civic action directed to safeguarding those fragile communities which depend on healthy and biologically diverse ecosystems for their livelihood and spiritual significance.

A must-watch for advocates of bio-cultural justice and systemic change, and for anyone who is curious to learn more about recent efforts taken on by indigenous communities to protect their ancestral rights.

This film sets the stage for a series of future documentaries that could inspire the political will needed to end the exploitation of biological and cultural heritage in South Africa and beyond.