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
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
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
"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?"
