The issue of using film in teaching African history has not been
spoken about much on H-AFRICA. If anybody is interested, however,
there is a movie that I saw at its premier on Friday night that might
be of considerable interest for those involved in teaching African
and South African history in particular. It is called Heart and
Stone, and is directed by Bridget Thompson. It is about the life of
the South African political activist and now vice president of the
senate, Govan Mbeki.
What is remarkable about this movie is that it cuts across all the
conventional narratives about the South African past that are set in
a nationalist paradigm. It tells about aspects that are not usually
spoken about in political biographies - family life, music,
interaction with traditional structures in rural areas etc. It is a
deeply personal movie and I highly recommend it for people teaching
about oral history methodologies, South African history and how
different histories interact with each other.
One of the fascinating things is that it not only is about rural
struggles in South Africa but also about how this interacts with
previous pasts, particularly in the eastern Cape. I feel it tells
more about South Africa and its past than those histories which
follow the line of the rise and emergence of political individuals
and organisations. If anyone is interested in the movie they could
contact me and I will try and put you in contact with the
distributors.