Through detailed investigations of selected films, from "De Voortrekkers" at one end of the twentieth century and "Mapantsula" at the other, Jacqueline Maingard examines how South African films have represented national identities, especially with regard to race, across the twentieth century. South African National Cinema critically analyzes particular films that engage questions of nation and national identity, establishing interrelationships with key points in South Africa's history, and discusses how South African Cinema figures in the making, entrenching and undoing of apartheid. The book examines: how early cinema screened 'the colonial' and skewed the sense of nation in a way that helped construct a white national identity; the building of white Afrikaner nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s, the creation of black audiences, and the cinematic production of black identities in a group of films made between 1949 and 1950; and anti-apartheid films of the 1980s and 1990s. Students of film studies, black studies and cultural studies, will all find this a fascinating and valuable addition to their bookshelves.
