south african ghetto kids

A documentary with the street children of Johannesburg.

Five lively kids use art to escape from the Mandela Park township in Cape Town, South Africa.

A white teenager invites two Black teenagers to join him in an afternoon of skateboarding, but this gesture of friendship takes an unexpected turn in Apartheid-era South Africa.

The film tells the story of Hans and Peter, who protested in the Johannesburg ghetto in 1976. There, they witnessed the murder of 300 black pupils and students by racist police forces. The film allows them to talk about what happened.

Hillbrow, a Johannesburg district bristling with buildings, on whose concrete reverberates the incessant maelstrom of street sounds. This overpopulated suburb, where life is cheap, is the playground of Tebogo and Karabo. Aged around fifteen, not very interested in school, in conflict with their mothers who are raising them alone and leave them a little to themselves, the two friends spend the summer relieving their boredom as best as they can. When they are not mixing with the groups of their elders, dancing in underground car parks or drifting through the urban hell, they seem to watch over the city by seeking refuge on the roof of their block.

Documentaries that revisit a group of children every seven years is brought to post-apartheid South Africa. Here, filmmaker Angus Gibson interviews 11 young people of various races and backgrounds as they turn 21. The result is an insightful look at how they've changed and the issues they face such as crime, race relations, education and the AIDS epidemic which has killed three of the original 14 children.

South African Film

In Cape Town, South Africa, one of the world's most violent and unequal societies, a young white film student sets out with his cameraman to make a “gangster film,” with real gangsters. After a lengthy search for a suitably 'cinematic' character, he finds the perfect gang and settles into their everyday rhythm. The reality soon catches up and the claustrophobic gangster life doesn’t exactly fit to the expectations.

Two homeless children attempt to escape the dangerous streets of Durban, South Africa.