South Africa Documentaries at the UBCO Library

Story of a Beautiful Country (DVD) 2004

Filmmaker Khalo Matabane travels through the nine provinces of South Africa in a minibus taxi. His passengers talk about their feelings and impressions of South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, covering topics such as land, race, language, globalization, democracy, identity, and violence.

Real Stories from a Free South Africa Series

Five films showing how the ten years of freedom from apartheid in South Africa have affected the lives of ordinary South Africans since the election of Nelson Mandela in May, 1994. Broadcasting 1, the most widely-watched channel in South Africa, with the support of the National Film and Video Foundation, commissioned fourteen emerging filmmakers to make video portraits of South African society. California Newsreel has chosen five of the fourteen original programs from this experiment in empowering people to tell their own life stories as they are unfolding.

Real Stories from a Free South Africa (Vol. 1) Hot Wax

Hot wax tells the story of a woman who runs her own beauty salon in Alexandra, serving primarily white clients.

Real Stories from a Free South Africa (Vol. 2) Cinderella of the Cape Flats

Cinderella of the Cape Flats presents the annual Spring Queen Pageant of 2003, for which the women clothing worker participants make their own clothing.

Real Stories from a Free South Africa (Vol. 3) Belonging

Belonging tells the story of a woman born in exile, daughter of political émigrés, who struggles to find her own place after she moves to the new South Africa.

Real Stories from a Free South Africa (Vol. 4) Umgidi (Shadow Dancing)

Umgidi tells of two brothers, their relationship with each other and with their family. One brother wants to accept his roots; the other wants desperately to escape them.

Real Stories from a Free South Africa (Vol. 5) Nabantwa Bam' (With My Children)

Nabantwa Bam’ is a case study of the emergence of social classes even within the same South African family, again focusing on two brothers, one who suffers from a debilitating head injury and has been unable to receive the education which would enable him to escape street life, and the other who is the first Black student as his all white school and is now a programmer with a promising career at Microsoft.