Come Back, Africa – The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Volume 2 (1959-1970) 2 x Blu-ray, download for free

May08

Come Back, Africa – The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Volume 2 (1959-1970) 2 x Blu-ray

by movieworld on May 8th, 2016 at 14:32

Posted In: .Other movies, Documentary, Drama

Much of Come Back, Africa was filmed in Sophiatown, a ghetto reserved for blacks and a vibrant center of music, art, literature and politics that has since become legendary. Residents included Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Father Trevor Huddleston, Hugh Masekela and three of the film’s main contributors – author/journalists Bloke Modisane and Can Themba and the already celebrated singer, Miriam Makeba. But even as they filmed, Sophiatown was already in the process of being demolished and its residents forcibly removed. Shortly after production ended, Sophiatown was emptied, razed and rebuilt as a whites-only suburb called Triumf. (Makeba, later known world-wide as “Mamma Africa,” helped popularize “Meadowlands”, a song against the forced removals, and in 1959 recorded “Sophiatown is Gone.”)

In making Come Back, Africa, Rogosin’s goal was to reveal the harsh injustice of apartheid. In order to make a film that honestly and accurately portrayed the life of people in Sophiatown (as he did with his first film, On the Bowery), the filmmaker spent almost a year meeting with activists and writers, both black and white. Rogosin cast the film before writing the screenplay, basing the story on the experiences of the cast and crew. The final script was little more than a sketch of plot points; the actors created their own dialogue in order to create an authentic representation of their lives.

Rogosin took the fight for equality to his homeland with his astonishing fourth feature Black Roots. The extraordinary cast, including Reverend Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, attorney and feminist activist Florynce "Flo" Kennedy, musicians Jim Collier, Wende Smith, Larry Johnson and Reverend Gary Davis tell stories of heartbreak and despair while their songs blow the roof off the rafters. A deeply humanist film, Black Roots combines tales of oppression with hauntingly beautiful images of the faces of black men, women and children.

Disc one

• Come Back, Africa. Directed by Lionel Rogosin, 1959, SDH subtitles (85:00)
• A Martin Scorsese Introduction (2:16)
• An American in Sophiatown: The Making of Come Back, Africa. Directed by Michael Rogosin & Lloyd Ross (51:54)
• Lionel Rogosin talks about Come Back, Africa. Radio Interview, 1978 (19:45)
• Come Back, Africa Theatrical Trailer (2:21)

Disc two

• Black Roots United States. Directed by Lionel Rogosin, 1970, SDH subtitles (1:02:35)
• Bitter Sweet Stories. Directed by Michael Rogosin. Documentary on the making of Black Roots (28:24)
• Have You Seen Drum Recently? Directed by Jurgen Schadeberg, 1989 (1:14:19)