Skip to content

South Africa Belongs To Us

Chris Austin
1980 Germany 55 minutes English

This intimate portrait of five typical black South African women reveals the dehumanizing reality of life under apartheid. The personal stories of a wife left behind in the homelands, a hospital cleaner living in a single-sex hostel, a public health nurse from Soweto, a domestic servant and a leader of a squatters’ camp, still provide the best introduction on film to the daily violence wreaked by apartheid on family life and the social fabric. At the same time, these five women’s resilience demonstrate the strength which will be able to build a new South Africa.

Production :
Gerhard Schmidt Produktion; WDR
Distribution :
California Newsreel
Editing :
Peter Chappell
Sound :
Allan Gerhard
Photography :
Peter Chappell