Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense (2014)

Director: Göran Hugo Olsson
Run Time: 85 min.
Call Number: DT33 .F313 2004

". . . reflects the shifting focus of Swedish activist filmmakers during the mid-’70s, who grabbed their cameras and traveled to the front lines of African independence, observing firsthand the fall of apartheid and liberation of a people who’d been exploited by white Europeans for decades. . . . In searching for a mechanism to unify this incredible footage, which has gone largely unseen by the general public ever since, Olsson seized upon Fanon’s 1961 tract [The Wretched of the Earth], a controversial anarchist cookbook which analyzed the psychology of occupation and identified violent upheaval as the only means to overthrow colonialism — a system Fanon referred to as 'violence in its
natural state.'"
—Peter Debruge, Variety

Sifuna Okwethu (We Want What's Ours) (2011)

Director: Bernadette Atuahene
Run Time: 40 min.
Call Number: HD983 .S54 2011

"Sifuna Okwethu (We Want What's Ours) is a documentary film about loss, resistance, identity and the elusiveness of justice as experienced by the Ndolila family in their quest to get back their family land. Standing in their way are working class black homeowners who purchased portions of the Ndolila's land during apartheid. For the homeowners, the land and houses they have legally purchased are a reward for their hard work. It is the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams for a better life in the new democracy. For the Ndolilas, the land is part of their family legacy and hence deeply intertwined with their identity. Both sides have a legitimate right to the land, but whose rights will prevail?"
—From publisher's website

Come Back, Africa (1959)

Director: Lionel Rogosin
Run Time: 83 min. 
Call Number: DT2405.J6557 C66 2014

"The dateline that opens Lionel Rogosin's Come Back, Africa reads 'Anno Domini 1959'—and the year is significant. Filming his exposé of apartheid in Johannesburg at the end of the '50s, Rogosin was capturing the transition in South African life from a decade that Anthony Sampson, editor of the legendary monthly Drum, called 'a unique period of opportunity and creativity'—and organized resistance—to the crackdown following the African National Congress treason trials, the 1958 prime ministership of Hendrik Verwoerd, and the Sharpeville Massacre of March 1960, during which police opened fire on black demonstrators and killed 69 people. . . . [W]hile filming, Rogosin's cover story for suspicious police was that he was shooting a harmless musical travelogue."
—Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice

Long Night's Journey into Day: South Africa's Search for Truth & Reconciliation (2000)

Directors: Deborah Hoffman, Frances Reid
Run Time: 94 min.

"Surprisingly, in almost every case the murderers don't look as penitent as one might expect. They are not sobbing or begging for forgiveness. All of them (except for the young rioters who killed Biehl) look twisted in some way, intent on justifying themselves, and as though they're merely going through the motions of apologizing.  This hardly takes away from the film. It adds a layer of complexity. One wonders: Are these people killers because they were weird to begin with -- or is their odd detachment the result of having to live with their crimes?" 
—Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle