AN electrifying documentary film about the photojournalist who recorded the world renown image of a dying Hector Pieterson during the June 16, 1976 Students Uprising made its debut at the Johannesburg Film Festival at an exclusive screening at the Theater on the Square in Sandton, on the evening of February 29.
Titled, Sam Nzima: A Journey Through His Lens, it is the brainchild of the late erstwhile The World newspaper lensman’s son, Thulani and Thokoza-raised filmmaker, Nhlanhla Mthethwa and his production company, Full Circle Productions, and has been an arduous almost ten years in the making since production commenced in 2014.
A 90-minute length chronicle on the creator of an image adjudged by no less a global authority as TIME magazine as being amongst its top 100 photographs of all time that shaped the human experience and changed the course of history – Mthethwa’s doccie is the first ever in-depth glimpse focusing on a creator as opposed to his/her creation. And a masterly and telling visual narration the producer and his young crew – which include the award-winning editor, Ikaye Masisi – have delivered!
The photograph, Thulani informed the audience pending a panel discussion at the conclusion of the viewing, had all along been better known than the man himself!
It is an expert labour of love from Mthethwa – an experienced producer of films on historic figures such as Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Thabo Mbeki, among an array of notaries, as well as a self declared archive researcher – and its existence constitutes a fulfilment of a promise he made to Nzima!
The structure of the film takes the viewer to-and-from the fateful day on June 16, 1976 whose dawn Nzima didn’t have the slightest idea – apart from having received a tip from a reliable source a day prior that something was in the offing – that destiny had chosen him to become an integral part of with worldwide reverberating implications!
Utilizing its absorbing and intense storyline with the interspersing of both galvanizing still imagery and mostly rare and previously unseen video footage – it limns Nzima’s life situation in the then Eastern Transvaal prior to his arrival to Johannesburg to embark on a career in journalism and his flight back to the land of his origins in the aftermath of the splashing of the famous monochromatic image around the world after then Justice Minister Jimmy Kruger’s securocrats were actively seeking to bring him to book for daring expose Apartheid’s excesses to the international community!
Tantamount to a forced exile, Nzima had to literally flee from Joburg, his family and his job after the infamous policeman, Hlubi, ironically, had warned him that the regime was out to get him in reprisal for the embarrassment his image had caused it!
The World newspaper’s editor, Percy Qoboza, had become alarmed and concerned for his life after Nzima had been invited to John Vorster Square “for coffee.” Warning him that it’d be the last the editorial staff would see of him were he to accede to the request, Nzima – to the sorrow of his wife Thelma – instantly fled for his life to his home village of Lillydale in Bushbuckridge.
This drastic act meant the ending of his beloved career and marked a period of a man forced to retreat into his own shell as he spent days on end brooding on what could had been of both his life and means of livelihood. Provincial policemen began periodic visits to his place to make him sign a sort of a register as proof that he remained confined there – with one gleefully taunting him that his province wouldn’t tolerate what he was up to in Joburg and that failure to adhere would imply dire consequences for him!
Engagingly rolling with a combination of visuals from the mid-seventies, family photo album ones and impactfully edited videography – the doccie features historic clips depicting prominent figures of the Struggle such as Winnie Madikizela, student leader, Tsietsi Mashinini, et cetera and personally conducted interviews of others such as Seth Mazibuko, Sibongile Mkhabela, Dr Thami Mazwai, Joe Tlholoe as well as fellow photographers of the ilk of ex-colleague of Nzima’s, viz, Tom Khoza, Ruth Motau, Siphiwe Mhlambi, etc.
Khoza offers insights into the sequence of events of the 16th and how the precious roll of film was moved from the location of the incident to the publication and onto the darkroom where he oversaw the process of its development and the discussion which ensued amongst The World’s editors and the ultimate decision to splash it on the paper’s front page to expose atrocities visited upon schoolchildren merely protesting the use of the Afrikaans language in their classrooms.
Overhead images recorded from helicopter depicting poignant scenes of mayhem below on the streets of Soweto also flash throughout the course of the doccie. These include one of a Putco bus which had crashed into a four-roomed house; overturned vehicles, burning structures and teargas, snarling police dogs and schoolchildren in various instances of confrontation with rifle-toting policemen!
Mention is made of Winnie and Duma Ndlovu driving around in their Volkswagen Beetles ferrying injured children to Baragwanath hospital for treatment. Chaos, danger and death permeate the narrative.
Crisscrossing a myriad of stories within the main one, a cute one focusses on Nzima’s courting of his future wife, Thelma, then a nurse at Baragwanath Hospital. A female acquaintance had initially shown Nzima a coterie of ladies who didn’t include Thelma to choose from – with the lensman adamantly settling on her and tying the knot with her in 1969.
Encompassing a stretch of time pending its production, the doccie (which had seasoned journalist, Barney Mthombothi as a consultant) also covers Nzima’s funeral in 2018, which like the recent one of a fellow photographer he revered, viz, Peter Magubane, was accorded special official status with SAPS ceremonial honours.
Additionally, it includes a souvenir from the moment of his receiving the Order of Ikhamanga from then President Jacob Zuma.
At a post-screening panel discussion, Mthethwa proudly mentioned that this was a local story homemade as opposed to an upcoming documentary on the late South African-born photographer, Ernest Cole, mooted to be produced by American director, Raoul Peck.
He explained his endeavour as akin to, “stand on the shoulders of the people who were there before us!”
Honcho of the Sam Nzima Foundation, Dr Reuel Khoza intoned the African proverb during the discussion: “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter!”
An independent platform presented by MultiChoice, the festival’s mission statement is the curation and showcasing of African and international films whilst providing youth as well as aspirant and established filmmakers and industry professionals with various opportunities for development, training skills transfer and networking.
All images Jacob MAWELA (Sam Nzima, A Journey Through His Lens poster).
