5 Films About South Africa

For the past four months, I've been slightly obsessed with films and documentaries about South Africa (thank you, Netflix). Here's a list of five that I found either enjoyable or informative, in no particular order:

1. U-Carmen
This is a modern adaptation of the opera Carmen, sung entirely in Xhosa and set in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha. It blew me away. The actors and actresses in the film are members of the Dimpho Di Kopane theater company, which performed the stage version of Carmen before it was translated into Xhosa and made into a film. The cinematography is gorgeous. It's a fascinating blend of intensely dramatic opera and South African culture, music, and color. Modernity meets tradition as these talented actors and musicians take a primarily European art form and make it entirely their own. I highly recommend it.

2. Amandla!
A wonderful documentary about the role of music in the struggle against apartheid. It's an interesting abbreviated history of the freedom movement through music. Needless to say, the soundtrack is outstanding.

3. The Color of Freedom (or Goodbye Bafana)
This is a film about the relationship between Nelson Mandela and one of his white, Xhosa-speaking prison guards. It's a good introduction to Mandela's time in prison and his later release, as well as the interworkings of apartheid. Though the accuracy of the story has been called into question, I'm a big fan of both Dennis Haysbert and Joseph Fiennes. So, despite possible historical inaccuracies, it's a thoroughly entertaining film.

4. Behind the Rainbow
The best introduction I've had to South African politics so far. It outlines the rise of the African National Congress (ANC), which was extremely influential in ending apartheid and later became the post-apartheid ruling party in South Africa. It's a tangled, confusing web. I need to watch it again and take notes. 

5. Angels in the Dust
This one will simultaneously break your heart and make it grow three times bigger (and, if you're like me, cry your eyes out). It's a documentary about Marion Cloete, a South African with a history of political activism whose family leaves behind a life of privilege to build an orphanage/village/school called Botshabelo. This organization helps over 500 children and adults from the rural community, many of whom are living with HIV/AIDS or coping with its aftermath. Marion is a surrogate mother, social worker, child therapist, and crisis counselor who (along with volunteers that are rather underrepresented in the documentary) is doing amazing work through empowering the children of this community and giving them opportunities to break the cycle of oppression created by poverty, apartheid, and AIDS. I probably won't be able to go to Botshabelo while I'm in South Africa this semester, but I really want to go there someday. I haven't even left yet, and I'm already planning my return trip (sorry, Mom).