Banned (2024) by Naledi Bogacwi

I have recently seen its premiere at the Durban International Film Festival in  July 2024. Banned (2024) by Naledi Bogacwi. The feature length documentary tells a story of South Africa’s past on issue of censorship and film industry. The film interviews the older generation of actors and filmmakers of South africa, including A Scheme producers, theatre makers as well as actresses who have contributed greatly on the industry. Notable icons such as Abigail Kubheka, Gcina Mhlophe, Mbongeni Ngema and others, appear to reflect on their experiences as thespians under influx control and Group Areas Act laws.

The story is based on work the filmmaker has done as a film lecturer. She was appointed to design a curriculum in African Cinema(s) in one of the South African institutions where she worked as a film lecturer. She mentions how she initially wanted to write a Masters research under the same theme as the film. Unfortunately, the proposal to look at racial cinema was not well received, and so she started using film as a medium to tell this story.

What is working with the story is the angle it assumes in representing how black filmmakers were treated under the A and B Scheme funds. Very few know about the history of the schemes or the Afrikaans and Bantu film segregational funding. It is good that the film brings it up, as it has automatically became an archival reference. For example, subjects in this film express about their differing payment they received from white filmmakers who exploited them. Others mention the number of deaths and arrests they succumbed to for being in spaces they were not supposed to be seen at. Others explain the legal charges they faced for representing on stage their harsh reality under the white regime.

It is good that she also interviews white filmmakers who were allies to the movement of fighting for better pay and exposure for black actors during apartheid south africa. However, they only remain sympathisers of the treatment that their black colleagues were conditioned to. The filmmaker failed to interview those who were behind the A scheme fund. With this, we do not hear the motives behind the A scheme, or hear how it was reformed.

Archives in this film date back to films of the 1970s from films such as Joe Bullet and Baragwanath. Perhaps it is a funding constraint to have this archival footage repeated timeously in the entire film, but it is good that it is there, especially when the newer generation is not aware that such films exist. It could also be an issue of budget constraints, but the editing of the film reads more like another rough cut. There are sequences that are a bit behind with the narrative, and there are those which beg for other visual demonstrations. 

This film works best in contemporary South Africa. It has traveled to Mostra Cinemas de Africanos in Brazil. The audiences there, expressed similar sentiments about censorship policies that they argue keep them out from telling some of their harsh realities.