African Jim
A simple story of a country lad who comes to the city to look for work, takes some knocks while adjusting to city life, but comes out on top when his singing talent is discovered.
In 1949, two expatriate Britishers, producer Eric Rutherford and director Donald Swanson, made African Jim. It is a simple story of a country lad who comes to the city to look for work, takes some knocks while adjusting to city life, but comes out on top when his singing talent is discovered.
Using musicians from the townships (it discovered South Africa's great singing star Dolly Rathebe), the film was a sensation for black audiences, who had never before seen their own heroes on screen. Its value as a historical document cannot be overstated; these images from the past reflect a vibrant township culture that was soon to be destroyed by apartheid.
Running Time
51 mins
Year
1949
Kanopy ID
1084095
Filmmakers
Languages
Subjects
Show More
Related videos
De Voortrekkers (Winning a Continent)
White version of the Great Trek of the Boer people across South Africa - actually, the invasion of Zulu land. This silent film shows the villainy and treachery of the Zulus and the heroism of the whites. But in its renegade Zulu character Sobuza (played by the actor Goba), who…
Siliva the Zulu
This is a heavily fictionalized account of Zulu life in 1927. Made by an Italian team that included the famous anthropologist Lidio Cipriani, it weaves genuine enthnographical elements into a fantasy of love, witchcraft, and betrayal.
Building a Nation
The epic story of the rise of the Afrikaner people in South Africa, told from their view of history.
Zonk!
Following up on the success of African Jim, but with higher production values, Zonk! shows the extraordinary cultural range available to township Africans, from the many ethnic strains of music from South Africa itself to contemporary American jazz and popular music, eagerly copied and Africanized.
Zonk! confirms that despite the…
Alan Paton's Beloved Country
Alan Paton - teacher, author, politician - was one of South Africa's most remarkable sons. This documentary reveals the man and the complex relationship he had with his country.
Repelled by the racism he saw all around him in his homeland, he wrote Cry, the Beloved Country, the novel that…
Song of Africa
A fantasy tale about a young Zulu who leaves his village to go to the city, falls in love with the new music he hears there, and returns home to form a Zulu jazz band.
The South African production and distribution company African Films followed up the success of Zonk!…
Hot Wax
Ivy is a big, bubbly black woman who managed to run her own beauty salon surreptitiously during the dark days of apartheid. She lives in Alexandra, a restless and poor township, while her white, mostly elderly, clients live in the tree-lined suburbs of Johannesburg. In her salon she is part-beautician,…
Umgidi (Shadow Dancing)
When Sipho, a former Robben Island inmate for 5 years gets a call from his father to help convince his reluctant younger brother to get circumcised, he procrastinates. Then, he gets an anguished letter from this brother Vuyo, informing him that he finally discovered he was adopted at birth.
Vuyo…
In Darkest Hollywood
Almost from the beginning of cinema, filmmakers have looked at the continent of Africa with a mixture of fear and fascination, prejudice and contempt. South Africa, with its fabulous mineral wealth, exotic locations, and white settlers, attracted scores of movie makers. Now, when the era of white rule has ended,…
South Africa: The Apartheid Years - The White Laager
In their quest for land in Southern Africa, the Boer people fought off the African inhabitants of the land they were invading from a circle of covered wagons, a laager.Long after they had won their battles, they still considered themselves a people besieged by black hordes even though these black…
South Africa: The Apartheid Years - Generations of Resistance
From the moment that white colonizers stepped onto the shore of Southern Africa, there was black resistance. This resistance continued unabated until apartheid was defeated. But the story of this resistance was suppressed and distorted because whites controlled the history books. This documentary was an attempt to give back to…
South Africa: The Apartheid Years - Winnie Mandela
During the more than a quarter of a century that her husband spent in jail, Winnie Mandela was persecuted by the white authorities, first to put pressure on her husband, and then because she developed as a leader in her own right. Under enormous constraints, Winnie Mandela slowly developed a…