Cry Freedom
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Cry Freedom is a feature film directed by Richard Attenborough, produced in 1987, which is set in the 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. The film was shot in neighbouring Zimbabwe, and, although not banned in South Africa, cinemas were faced with bomb threats from extreme right-wing whites. According to the Internet Movie Database, the film was seized by authorities on July 29, 1988. The film is based on the book of the same name written by John Briley.
Cry Freedom is a dramatization of the story of Steve Biko, the South African Black Consciousness Movement leader, who was murdered while in police custody, and Donald Woods, the white editor of the Daily Dispatch who befriended him. Woods wrote a book exposing the death of Biko while in Police custody. In order for him to get the book published he had to escape from South Africa.
Biko is played by Denzel Washington, and Woods is played by Kevin Kline. Woods' wife, Wendy, is played by Penelope Wilton.
Chronology of Cry Freedom
- The South African government stages a raid on the Crossroads squatter camp.
- Editor Donald Woods criticises both the government, because of the raid, and Steve Biko for inciting racism against whites through his philosophy of Black Consciousness.
- Dr Ramphele, Biko's colleague visits Woods and invites him to meet Biko in his banning area at King William's Town.
- Biko takes Woods to Zanempilo, a rural clinic staffed by black medical people, and a black township where he explains and debates his ideas with Woods. Woods discusses his role in a society based on the separation of the races and the basic inequalities in this society.
- As a result, Woods employs two black reporters to give an urban black point of view.
- Woods starts to warm to Biko, and listens to his ideas more.
- Biko defies his ban (which made it illegal for him to be in the same room as two or more people at the same time excluding immediate family) and speaks at a soccer match, taking Woods with him.
- Biko is identified as the speaker by a person behind a cardboard "mask", but the police do not detain or even harm him, as he is due to be a witness in an upcoming trial of some of his colleagues.
- At the trial, he gives the "We are in confrontation, but I see no Violence" line. Also, at this point, the film gives Biko license to sum up the BCM's agenda for the viewer.
- The clinic at Zanempilo is vandalized by the local Police, but in disguise. A witness tells Woods that the local police chief was the leader of the vandals.
- Woods complains to the South African Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger. He urges the minister to establish a dialogue with Biko.
- Woods is "visited" by local detectives and told he must name his witness, or go to prison.
- Woods meets with Biko and tells him that he (Woods) is facing prison.
- The black members of Woods' staff begin to get arrested. After the death of one ("suicide" while in custody), Biko comes to Woods' house, telling him of his plans to go to Johannesburg to meet with some students.
- Woods and his wife plead with Biko not to go, but he does.
- Biko is stopped on the road to Johannesburg and taken into custody.
- Some 10 days later, a doctor is brought in to examine Biko, who is in a near coma, beaten badly. The doctor urges the Police to get Biko to a specialist. They put him in an ambulance and take him to Pretoria, 700 miles away.
- Biko dies in custody. The government reports that he died from a hunger strike, and Minister Kruger tells Parliament that he is unaffected by the death.
- Woods and his photographer accompany Biko's widow to the morgue and surreptitiously take pictures proving that he died from abuse.
- Woods has a meeting with other liberals and tells them his plans about going to the US.
- After Biko's funeral, Woods begins to feel more pressure from the police. While trying to go to the US for speaking engagements, he is arrested and informed that he is now a banned person.
- Woods resolves to leave South Africa in order to publish his book about Biko. His wife is reluctant, but after an attack on their children she agrees.
- Woods and his family escape South Africa to Lesotho, on the way to eventual exile in Britain. They follow an elaborate plan to get Woods over the border before the authorities are alerted. Woods crosses the border disguised as a priest and does a funny dance once he is safely in Lesotho.
- As Woods and family are flying in a small plane over South African territory to Botswana, without South African permission to do so, the film graphically shows a massacre of protesting schoolchildren in Soweto by government forces.
- This chronology is incomplete. Please expand.
External links
- [}}} }] at the Internet Movie Database
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