Miriam Makeba Movies

Presented in conjunction with the landmark "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match between famed pugilists Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Zaire '74 was a three-day music festival in Kinshasa that was organized by South African musician Hugh Masekela and American record producer Stewart Levine, and featured performances by such famed musicians as James Brown, Bill Withers, and B.B. King, among others. Many of the American musicians performing at Zaire '74 had been emboldened by the American Civil Rights movement, and saw their journey to Africa as a unique opportunity not just to perform for a new set of enthusiastic fans, but to explore their roots as well. However, while the forward-thinking promoters of Zaire '74 hired a talented team of documentary filmmakers to capture everything from the setup to the performances to everyday life in Kinshasa, the project ran into trouble when the Liberian investment group that financed the festival and film ran into some rather serious legal disputes. For the next three decades, the remarkable footage would sit untouched and unedited -- a valuable sociohistorical artifact seemingly forgotten, and left to succumb to the ravages of time. Later, in 1996, the rights were settled in order to help facilitate the completion of When We Were Kings, an Academy Award-winning documentary focusing on the very same Ali/Foreman match that took place alongside the Zaire '74 music festival. Recognizing the need to assemble the neglected Zaire '74 footage while it was still possible, When We Were Kings editor Jeffrey Levy-Hinte made it his own personal mission to see the long gestating project through to completion. The result is not simply a concert film featuring some of the most popular African and American musicians of the era, but also a pure cinéma vérité glimpse into a time when the musical crossover between the two nations was just beginning to emerge. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Whoopi Goldberg stars in this musical take on the South African struggles against Apartheid in the mid-1970s, during the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. An adaptation of Mbongeni Ngema's popular musical, which ran on Broadway from 1988 to 1989, Sarafina! recounts the political coming of age of the title character, a high school girl involved in the Soweto student protests of 1976. At first just a petulant bundle of energy, more interested in boys than civil rights, Sarafina (Leleti Khumalo) learns of the Afrikaaner oppression through the underground lectures of her teacher, Mary Masembuko (Goldberg). Sarafina's mother, who works as a servant in a white household and never sees her children, urges Sarafina to toe the line. But she can no longer turn a blind eye when the government imprisons her teacher and slaughters her would-be boyfriend during an arson protest. Incited to rebellion, the students kill a crooked black constable, leaving Sarafina to wrestle with their decision to use violence against the government's strictures. Ever tightening its grip, the ruling regime would kill 575 blacks over eight months in an attempt to quell the civil unrest. The sober subject matter is leavened by Ngema's jubilant songs and Michael Peters' electric choreography. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi

Everyone in the family is thrilled by a visit from celebrated African singer Miriam Makeba--everyone, that is, except Olivia (Raven-Symone), who is nowhere to be found. Depressed over the fact that she won't see her Navy-officer father for another three months, Olivia deliberately gets lost in hopes of persuading him to stay. In the end, it is Ms. Makeba who locates Olivia and dispense a few heartfelt words of wisdom. This episode marks the final appearance of former series regular Joseph C. Phillips, in the role of Olivia's father Martin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This documentary explores the contribution of the magazine "Drum" to the cultural and political life of South Africa, especially as a rallying point for Black sophisticates. The magazine was put together in Sophiatown, a focal point for a black cultural renaissance which has parallels that that which took place in Harlem in New York in the 1920s. Among the highlights of this documentary is footage giving us a view of the young Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo as they conduct political meetings and confrontations. In a typical act of the apartheid regime, Sophiatown was eventually bulldozed into nonexistence, since it could be classified as an "unauthorized settlement." "Drum" magazine seems to have met a similar fate. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The sights and sounds of the dark continent come alive in Portrait of Africa. A visual safari, the one-hour documentary presents a breathtaking musical tour of the widely differing landscapes. Swayed by the rhythms of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Miriam Makeba, the viewer is lifted high above the plains of the Serengeti to touch down on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Kenya unfolds to the beat of Vangelis. Lake Turkana seduces the camera with its wildly rugged coast. The settings play host to a cornucopia of the people and animals that inhabit this massive land. Portrait of Africa leaves a lasting impression of vast riches, wealth measured by the senses. ~ Sarah Ing, Rovi

In 1986, Paul Simon released his album Graceland, a ground-breaking collaboration with some of South Africa's finest musicians that brought the sensuous and expressive sounds of "Township Jive" to an international mass audience for the first time. Simon then mounted an international concert tour with several of the musicians that appeared on the album, and this home video release captures the final date of the tour in 1987, in which Simon, singer Miriam Makeba, trumpeter Hugh Masekela, and vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo brought the music back to Africa for a massive outdoor concert in Zimbabwe. Selections include "The Boy in the Bubble," "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," "You Can Call Me Al," "Homeless," "I Know What I Know," "Graceland," "Gumboots," and 11 more. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

American documentary producer/director Lionel Rogosin followed up his Oscar-nominated film On the Bowery (1956) with another docudrama about the disenfranchised, Come Back Africa. Lensed for the most part in Johannesburg, the film follows a Zulu family that has been uprooted from its native environs and plunked down in the middle of a strange urban "jungle". Due to the repressiveness of the South African powers-that-were, Rogosin was forced to shoot his film with hidden cameras, then obliged to smuggle the footage out of the continent. The finished film, which depicts its protagonists as being the helpless pawns of a white bureaucracy, was condemned as radical propaganda in many landed-gentry circles, especially the coal-mining interests (the main character is worked in the mines until he drops). Conditions may have improved in Johannesburg since Come Back Africa was first released, but the human-rights abuses depicted herein persist elsewhere, making this 35-year-old film as contemporary as today's newspaper. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi