For many people ”history” evokes images of thick books with faded black-and-white pictures and useless facts about dead people. But what if these people could rise from the dead to tell their tales? South Africa has a rich history that’s crying out to be brought alive.
Students in the history department at the University of Cape Town (UCT) are helping to achieve precisely that. They are bringing the history books to life through film documentaries. Innovatively, two master’s students, Taryn da Canha and Gaironisa Paleker, earlier this year submitted films for the first time in place of a dissertation.
The department offers a course in analysing historical documentary films both at honours and master’s levels. The honours course, which has been running for a decade, introduces students to the history and current practice of documentary filmmaking, with a particular emphasis on the historical documentary.
Honours students produce their documentaries in groups of three, while master’s students work alone. The students direct their own films. Da Canha’s honours group produced a documentary about the widows of the Cradock Four.
Da Canha’s master’s film is about the South African documentary industry of the past 30 years. More than 200 short fiction and non-fiction films have been made in South Africa since 1980, mainly with anti-apartheid themes.
Da Canha made her film in two parts. The first part focuses on documentaries from the 1960s to the 1980s, while the second looks at documentaries of the 1990s.
”My focus was mainly on progressive filmmaking, especially around the whole anti-apartheid film movement,” she says.
She explored film companies such as Afrovision, which had African National Congress roots. The company campaigned strongly for workers’ rights in its films. Its movies included Fruits of Defiance (1989) and Forward to a People’s Republic (1981), the latter exploring different ways in which South Africans celebrated Republic Day in 1981.
Paleker chose an individual as the subject of her film. ”I chose Cissie Gool because I was curious about her history. I did some research beforehand and was fascinated by her life.” Gool was the first black woman to complete an MA degree in psychology. She also became the first black woman to practise law in South Africa, which she did in 1963 — at the age of 63. Paleker says historians have overlooked Gool.
”Part of the reason I did this film is because I think that Cissie deserves some exposure. I chose my topic because there is a Cissie Gool Avenue out in Athlone that I drive past regularly. I never knew who Cissie Gool was. When I learned about all her achievements, I was intrigued by a woman who was a pioneer in so many instances.”
Both Da Canha and Paleker say the process of filmmaking was challenging, but they gained valuable experience.
”The ability to learn and become comfortable with digital technology, and incorporate that not only in our learning process but to finally produce something tangible, have all been very important,” says Paleker.
The UCT television unit plays an important role in assisting the students. It helps them come to terms with the editing system and gives them technical advice. In the honour’s year the TV team edits the students’ films. In the master’s year the students do the editing themselves. The university subsidises the documentaries.
Associate professors Vivian Bickford-Smith and Richard Mendelsohn supervise the projects. The criteria used to judge the films focus strongly on the students’ research. ”But good research is no excuse not to produce a decent-looking film,” says Da Canha.
Although master’s students have to produce the documentary on their own, they receive guidance from the two professors. Paleker says they supervise the film as they would a traditional written thesis. ”Towards the end of the project we met with them quite often so that we could work through the script and written components. They also viewed a rough cut of the film and gave input before it went to a final cut.”
The course offers the students a great future. Graduates can go on to become researchers in the public, private or NGO sectors, pursue a film career in a variety of capacities or become journalists.