Director's Statement

It is almost fourteen years now, whilst still in exile, that I learnt about this time and place called Sophiatown. For want of a better word I have been obsessed ever since and this film is the fruit of that obsession.

Sophiatown was different from other black townships in South Africa. People didn't have to get permission to live there and people of all racial backgrounds could buy and own property there. Despite poverty, squalor and violence Sophiatown was exuberant and alive. Writers, musicians, politicians and journalists lived side by side with gangsters, shebeen queens and black and white Bohemians.

Henry Nxumalo's story is as poignant as that of Sophiatown itself. Nxumalo lived in Sophiatown both literally and physically. Sophiatown was his home, the place he went to for solace, inspiration and his stories. Sophiatown's rich images, its reputation as the swinging epicenter of the African jazz and literary renaissance belied the often tragic reality of the squalor and hardships that Henry Nxumalo expressed through his writing and work at Drum in particular.

It is through the eyes of this man that we relive this extraordinary time and place. For me Henry Nxumalo personified this period. Not only was he at the forefront of documenting it as a journalist, but also his story is the story of Sophiatown.

Zola Maseko - September 2004