Images of Apartheid: Filmmaking on the Fringe in the Old South Africa Calum Waddell 9781474450027

Images of Apartheid: Filmmaking on the Fringe in the Old South Africa is an exploration of the low budget, black-action cinema that emerged in South Africa during the 1970s and led to subsequent gangster and race-conflict films that defined an era of prolific genre activity, from Joe Bullet (1973) to American Ninja 4 (1990). Contextualising and documenting the cheap, government-funded 'B-Scheme' films, largely unseen since the fall of the National Party, but also acknowledging the impact of international co-productions such as The Wild Geese (1978) and locally made provocation, including the classic Mapantsula (1988), this study is an exhaustive tour of race-representation and state-subsidised subversion. Also discussing the political turbulence of the era, Images of Apartheid argues that so-called 'ZAxploitation' should be considered within both localised and wider international paracinematic networks of genre adaptation, resulting in the identification of a uniquely South African form of trash and treasure, and schlock and awe.

About the Author
Calum Waddell, Lecturer in Film, University of Aberdeen.


Book Information
ISBN 9781474450027
Author Calum Waddell
Format Hardback
Page Count 280
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Series Traditions in World Cinema