Cinema
uDeliwe
Simon Sabela · 1975
Synopsis
Deliwe, a girl from the Zulu countryside, leaves Natal for Johannesburg, the city of gold. There she discovers the freedom the city offers young women, enters the world of fashion and wins a beauty contest. A car accident, which leaves her marked for life, overturns her fortune and forces her to measure what her departure has cost her.
Context
The film adapts a Radio Bantu serial written in 1964 by Mandla Sibiya, and it is the first South African feature film directed by a Black filmmaker. Sabela also plays the male lead in it, opposite Cynthia Shange, a beauty queen, and Joe Mafela. The studio Heyns Films, which produced it, was financed without the director's knowledge by the Department of Information; in the Information scandal, a few years later, it was revealed to be a front for state propaganda.
Who it is for
A 104-minute melodrama in Zulu, which can be followed without knowing anything about South African cinema of the 1970s.
Prizes and reception
The fame of Sabela and Cynthia Shange made it a cult film among Black audiences; Litheko Modisane studies it in Renegade Reels.
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