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Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony has brought to South Africa an Emmy TV show award. Amandla! was nominated for five categories, and managed to garner an Emmy in the research category. The documentary has been screened in cinemas and on SABC2 as part of celebrating 10 years of democracy.
Film Biography
.Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony
Song is what keeps us alive."
-- Lindiwe Zulu (Freedom Fighter)
The
power of song to communicate, motivate, console, unite and, ultimately,
beget change: that ideal, gloriously realized, lies at the heart of
director Lee Hirsch's inspiring feature film documentary Amandla! A
Revolution in Four-Part Harmony. Winner of the Audience Award and
Freedom of Expression Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, Amandla!
tells the story of black South African freedom music and reveals the
central role it played in the long battle against apartheid. The first
film to specifically consider the music that sustained and galvanized
black South Africans for more than 40 years, Amandla!'s focus is on the
struggle's spiritual dimension, as articulated and embodied in song. It
is unlike any other film yet made on the subject of apartheid, and an
electrically expressive portrait of South African life then and now.
In form as well as content, Amandla! breaks new ground. Beginning with
its dynamic opening title sequence, Amandla! harnesses the visual and
sonic power of cinema to create a powerfully emotional viewing
experience. Vivid, color-drenched cinematography flows like song,
complementing an innovative narrative that combines original footage,
breathtaking musical numbers, archive and haunting reenactments to
celebrate the resilience of the human spirit throughout the decades-long
struggle for freedom in South Africa. Nine years in the making, Amandla!
was shot in South Africa and features interviews with a diverse range of
individuals, who candidly share their experiences of struggle and song.
The film brings dozens of freedom songs to the screen, drawing upon
original recordings and thrilling, sometimes impromptu live performances
by celebrated South African musicians and nonprofessionals alike.
Threaded throughout the film, these rich and beautiful anthems take
viewers on an extraordinary journey through the spiritual and physical
reality of life under apartheid.
Amandla! unearths the story of an extraordinary unsung hero, composer
and activist Vuyisile Mini. A courageous political leader as well as a
gifted songwriter and poet, Mini quickly realized the expressive potency
of song after the apartheid government came to power in 1948, depriving
black South Africans of their most basic rights as citizens. Mini gave
voice and hope to a powerless people with anthems like 'Beware Verwoerd,'
in which an infectious melody carries Xhosa lyrics that warn the
architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, that his day of reckoning will
come.
To tell the story of this music, Amandla! turns to the people of South
Africa itself. Among those featured in intimate interviews are the
renowned musicians who helped expose the suffering of black South Africa
to the world, including trumpeter Hugh Masekela, singer Miriam Makeba,
pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, singer/songwriter Vusi Mahlasela and singer
Sibongile Khumalo. There are several generations of South Africans who
experienced the struggle on the ground, a group that ranges from
actress/singer Sophie Mgcina to freedom fighter (now Chief Director,
West and Central Africa in the government's Department of Foreign
Affairs) Lindiwe Zulu and activist/music producer Sifiso Ntuli. One of
the film's most moving stories comes from current Parliament member
Thandi Modise, who describes her ordeal as a political prisoner under
apartheid. Tortured despite her advanced pregnancy, Modise was abandoned
to her dank cell after her water broke during a brutal interrogation. On
the verge of suicide, she mustered the will to live and fight on she
began to sing.
In addition to the songs themselves, Amandla! retrieves a stunning
bounty of archive footage, some of it never before seen. Culled from a
variety of sources, the footage describes the brutal arc of apartheid:
the forced removals of black South Africans to wretched,
government-built townships; the institution of onerous pass laws; and
the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. As the white government grew
increasingly repressive and violent in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s,
freedom songs responded, urging the fight on. A new combination of dance
and song, the toyi-toyi, became a potent weapon in taking on the police.
In 1994, the struggle reached its triumphant climax with the election of
Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first democratically chosen president.
Amandla! concludes on a joyously harmonic note with the 'Siyanqoba
(Victory)' rally, held in 1995 just prior to the government's first
democratic local elections, the final step in the process of democratic
transformation. Yet the story of freedom songs does not end there; as
Amandla! makes clear, the music remains part of the fabric of the new
South Africa. The freedom songs that were the strongest voice of an
oppressed people now serve to express the very soul of their struggle to
a post-apartheid generation. Named for the Xhosa word for 'power,'
Amandla! lives up to its title, telling an uplifting story of human
courage, resolve and triumph.
