Title:PHELA-NDABA - END OF THE DIALOGUE : apartheid in South Africa 1970 [Main Title]
Film Number:PMM 13
Other titles:END OF THE DIALOGUE [Alternative Title]
Summary: Documentary about apartheid in South Africa: the film contrasts black living conditions with the opulence of white city life.
Description: Added emphasis is supplied by the intercutting of colour and black and white footage. Commentary is comparatively restrained and sparse - a brief narration will be illustrated by long film sequences provided with atmospheric sound. The film visits the Bantustans and the segregated townships such as Soweto, and comments on the lack of black housing, medical and educational facilities, the restrictive pass laws which enforce cheap labour rates and separate workers' families, and the arbitrary land-laws which dispossess coloured home-owners and reserve 87% of South African land for the whites. Racial solidarity between the African and Asian populations is suggested by film coverage of the sugar plantations around Durban, where a mainly Indian labour force works under feudal conditions. Foreign involvement in South African apartheid is represented in the gold mines, where black labourers sweat to maintain Western standards of living, and more explicitly by a revue of foreign-purchased COIN equipment. The film concludes with a brief mention of the political imprisonment and execution of militants and an effectively staged roll-call of the dead.
Alternative Title:END OF THE DIALOGUE [Alternative Title]
Colour:Colour
Digitised:
Object_Number:PMM 13
Sound:Sound
Access Conditions:NON-IWM
Featured Period:1946-1975
Production Date:1970
Production Country: South Africa
Production Details: Pan-African Congress of South Africa (Production sponsor)
Morena Films (Production company)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Pan African Congress (regiment/service)
Keywords: agriculture, South African - arable: sugar (object name)
economics, South African national - employment: black labourers (object name)
industry, South African - primary: gold mining (object name)
law and order, South African - enforcement: [abuse] (object name)
politics, South African - establishment: apartheid (object name)
propaganda, South African - inflammatory: anti-apartheid (object name)
South Africa & Durban (geography)
South Africa & Soweto (geography)
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: Colour
Sound format: Sound
Soundtrack language: English
Title language: English
Subtitle language: None
Technical Details: Format: 16mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 1636 ft; Running time: 45 mins
