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South African Studies
2009 Spring Semester - Course Description
Introduction to South African Cinema
CEA Partner Institution: Stellenbosch University
Location: Stellenbosch, South AfricaPrimary Subject Area: Film Studies
Other Subject Area(s): History
Level(s): 300
Instruction in: English
Recommended Semester Credits: 3
Contact Hours: 45
Description
This course will begin with a history of early South African cinema, from newsreel coverage of the South African War (1899-1902) to the ways in which cinema was used to further the ends of Afrikaner nationalism in the early decades of the twentieth century. The first movie tol be watched and discussed is African Jim (1949), a film with an 'all-African cast' made in the fragile interstice before apartheid gained momentum. Apartheid-era films to be discussed include The Gods must be crazy (1980), and Mapantsula (1988). Students will be expected to research the ways in which censorship affected the film industry in South Africa, and the ways in which it decreed and limited which films would be screened in the Republic. Subsequently, the class will focus on post-apartheid cinema with films such as Drum (2004), Yesterday (2004), and Tsotsi (2005). Some topics to be discussed include racial and gendered identities in the films under discussion; representations of the city and the 'rural areas' in South African film; censorship and classification of film; cinema as social commentary; and cinema as mediating South Africa in the global sphere.
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