Come Back, Africa

"A heroic film…a film of terrible beauty, of the ongoing life it captured and of the spirit embodied by Rogosin and his fellow artists."—Martin Scorsese

Time Magazine called Come Back, Africa one of the best films of 1959, but it has barely been seen since. Rogosin’s secretly filmed second film (after On the Bowery, one of the major cinematic rediscoveries of 2010) is a historical wonder and an honest glimpse into the harsh reality of life under the now-abolished apartheid policies of the South African government. Filmed in Sophiatown, a township reserved for blacks that was in the process of being demolished in order to send its citizens to an even worse area, Rogosin had his nonprofessional cast help create the film’s dialogue, resulting in a remarkable representation of the living conditions at the time. The then-unknown singer Miriam Makeba sings two songs in a cameo, an appearance that the Guardian ranked at #17 in a list of the 50 key events in the history of world and folk music. (83 mins., 35mm)