Between 1948 and 1994, South Africa stood out as a defiant last redoubt of official white supremacy and extreme racial segregation. This series offers a range of visual and narrative treatments of the problems of political repression, racial discrimination, the peculiarities of life under apartheid, and the persistent links between the U.S. and South Africa. The series is sponsored by the History Department, African Studies, Black Film Center/Archive and IU Cinema and is shown in conjunction with the Mathers Museum exhibit Margaret Bourke-White and the Dawn of Apartheid. Screenings are free, but ticketed. Come Back, Africa (1959) Directed by Lionel Rogosin November 2 - Saturday - 7:00 p.m. Come Back Africa remains one of the most famous—and yet, rarely seen—visual records of black urban life under apartheid. Shot clandestinely in a cinema-verité style, it recounts the story of a black migrant worker making his way through the workplaces, white homes, and black leisure spaces of segregated Johannesburg. Milestone Films’ recent restoration has given new life to the most politically and aesthetically important film on black life in South Africa in the 1950s, illustrating the new urban black culture that blossomed in Johannesburg’s thriving Sophiatown. (35mm. 95 min. Not Rated.) Cry, the Beloved Country (1951) Directed by Zoltan Korda October 22 - Tuesday - 7:00 p.m. Based on Alan Paton’s famous novel illustrating racial divisions in post-World War II South Africa, Cry, the Beloved Country, was filmed on location during the first years of apartheid. The film dramatizes the collision of African rural and urban cultures. Actors Sidney Poitier and Canada Lee star, while having to negotiate South Africa’s complex racial terrain while shooting the film. Although critical of South African racism, the film also represents Paton’s view that black South Africans proved poorly adaptable to modern urban industrial life. (35mm. 103 min. Not Rated.) Searching for Sugar Man (2012) Directed by Malik Bendjelloul November 10 - Sunday - 6:30 p.m. This Oscar-winning documentary chronicles the life of Sixto Rodriguez, a Detroit singer who recorded two albums in the early 1970s and was forgotten in the U.S. When ambitions to become the next Bob Dylan fell flat, he found work doing manual labor and disappeared into obscurity. A bootlegged copy of one of his albums made it to apartheid South Africa where, unbeknownst to him, his socially engaged music became a huge hit in the 1980s. In 1997, after the end of apartheid, two South African fans (a record store owner and a journalist) found him in Detroit. They arranged a tour of postapartheid South Africa, creating a world-wide revival of his music. (2K DCP. 86 min. Rated PG-13.) cinema.indiana.edu South Africa: Apartheid and After 41