12 of South Africa’s Best Movies You Might Have Missed

We all know about “Tsotsi”, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and Leon Schuster’s blockbusters that people might titters at but go see anyway. We also know those movies about South Africa with foreigners trying to pass off as locals (“Cry Freedom”, “Long Road to Freedom”). But here are 12 little screen gems born and bred in South Africa.

1. Dirkie (1969)

Also known as “Lost in the Desert”, this action-packed movie is just waiting to get a new version, if only so we can see it on the big screen again. A sickly young boy and his dog are stranded in the desert when their plane crashes. Watch especially for the snake scene. (The full movie is here, albeit with Spanish subtitles!)

2. Confessions of a Gambler (2007)

A real treat from Rayda Jacobs. A Muslim woman’s life spins out of control when she gets hooked on playing the slots.

3. Yesterday (2004)

Darrell Roodt’s movie about a kindhearted rural woman who discovers she has AIDS and goes in search of her miner husband.

4. The Guest (1974)

Ross Devenish directs the brilliant Athol Fugard as the heroin-addicted writer Eugene Marais.

5. Come Back, Africa (1959)

Directed by American Lionel Rogosin, it was co-written with him by Lewis Nkosi
and William Modisane, a hybrid of fictional film and documentary: docufiction. The a hard-hitting story of a group of people in the townships and mines of Johannesburg, it stars, among others, a young Miriam Makeba.

6. Daar Doer in die Bosveld (1951)

Jamie Uys (he of “The Gods Must be Crazy” fame, who also made “Dirkie”) shot his first movie in 1951 and acted in the main role. A small story about a shy farmer falling in love, you can see the seeds of “Beautiful People” and “Gods” in this sweet flick. Try this link to see the whole movie.

7. U-Carmen (2005)

A wonderful adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen with the main role, a worker in a cigarette factory, played by Pauline Malefane. It’s shot in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha.

7. Fiela se Kind (1988)

It caused quite a stir at the time, based on Dalene Mathee’s best-selling book about a coloured woman who finds a white baby on her doorstep and raises him as her own. Nine years later, he is discovered and taken away.

https://youtu.be/LR_zsK3pDiA

8. Otelo Burning (2011)

Sara Blecher’s incendiary movie about Otelo, who discovers he has an amazing talent for surfing until his brother is murdered.

10. Skoonheid (2011)

In this prize-winning movie, a married man finds himself infatuated with the wrong person.

11. Material (2012)

The story of what it’s like to be a comedian (Riaad Moosa) and to keep that fact from your Muslim parents.

12. Nag van die 19de (1991)

This one is worth seeing for Embeth Davidtz before she went to America and acted in “Schindler’s List” and “The Amazing Spider-Man”, among others. A young woman in Lamberts Bay leads a tragic life after disaster strikes her on the eve of her wedding.

https://youtu.be/PVa64T6lHXQ