24 June, 2019 - 06:06
In the 1970s and 80s, the apartheid government funded a little-known film scheme aimed at black South Africans. In 1973, a ground-breaking film, Joe Bullet, was screened - for the very first time - at the Eyethu Cinema in Soweto. It was the first South African-produced film with a black action hero and an all-black cast.
Benjamin Cowley, the CEO of Gravel Road Productions, described the film as unique because at the height of apartheid, no one was producing movies with all-black cast members for black audiences.
According to Tonie van der Merwe, the writer and producer of Joe Bullet, the apartheid censors banned the film after just two screenings. In a letter, the censors listed the reasons for their decision which included: the main character carrying a gun, driving a sports car, living in a white neighbourhood. Stupid, stupid reasons, said van der Merwe.
While Joe Bullet was a commercial failure, it demonstrated that there was a huge demand in South Africa for films like it; however, without the apartheid censors approval, there was a good chance that they would be banned. So an agreement had to be reached with the apartheid government.
Back in 1956, the A-scheme film subsidy had been created by the government in order to develop a national film industry for white South Africans. To qualify for the subsidy, the films had to have white casts, dialogue in one of the white South African languages - either English or Afrikaans - and typically the themes would promote the white South African way of life.
Using the A-scheme as a template, van der Merwe and his associates successfully lobbied the apartheid government for a B-scheme film subsidy; only these films would contain black casts, dialogue in one of the black South African languages, and would target black audiences.
The reason why the apartheid government - with its policies of racism, oppression and segregation - agreed to help bankroll the films had to do with the political climate.
At the time, there was escalating political unrest in the country. As more and more black South Africans took to the streets in the fight against apartheid, the government had to come up with a distraction. Thus, the B-scheme film subsidy got the green light.
It was about moralising the leisure time of black people because if theyre not occupied, they get up to all kinds of mischief, says Gairoonisa Paleker, a senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria, of the apartheid governments logic. And a secondary benefit, a huge plus, was of course the kind of ideological value that the apartheid state could get out of it.
As one of the filmmakers who was instrumental in creating the B-scheme film subsidy, van der Merwe is well placed to say what kind of themes and storylines the apartheid government would favour.
They loved you to put in that good will always win over the evil. Crime doesnt pay.
The other prevailing theme, according to van der Merwe, was that black South Africans should stay in their homelands and not come into the white urban centres.
Homelands were small, semi-autonomous regions created by the apartheid government. Each of the major black ethnic or tribal groups were allocated a homeland; however, these regions were typically underserved and poverty-stricken.
Convincing black South Africans to stay there, or return there after their work in white South Africa was done, was crucial for the apartheid governments policy of racial segregation to succeed.
The theme - that black South Africans should go back to the homelands - became so common in the B-scheme films that the entire genre came to be known as Back to the Homelands. And it was not just about selling the tranquil life of the homelands, it was also about warning viewers of the perils of life in the white, urban centres.
The urban centres were always portrayed as dens of vice for black people ... and black people were portrayed as morally weak. They always succumbed to the evils of the urban centres, said Paleker.
While the nature of this propaganda may have lacked subtlety, the demographic it was intended for had so little exposure to cinema that they had little to compare the films to.
Charles Mokatsane, a cinema owner in Soweto who grew up watching B-scheme films, said: We were so ignorant, we welcomed anything that came our way. We never saw anything wrong because thats all we had. Our eyes only opened when more Western movies were coming through. Its only then when we realised that this, its not good for us.
In 1989, crippled by sanctions, the cash-strapped apartheid government abolished the B-scheme.
Today, there is very little official documentation about the subsidy and many of the films have disappeared, leaving opinion in South Africa divided.
Some say that the B-scheme is a blot on the South African film industry and the films are nothing more than propaganda. Others call the films a lost heritage and argue that the apartheid government unintentionally paved the way for many black South Africans to enter the film industry.
Either way, the story of the B-scheme film subsidy tells us a lot about the history of South Africa.
Contributors:
Charles Mokatsane - cinema owner
Benjamin Cowley - CEO, Gravel Road Productions
Gairoonisa Paleker - senior lecturer, University of Pretoria
Tonie van der Merwe - filmmaker
www.aljazeera.com
Feature Films
Africa South Africa
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
24 June, 2019 - 06:06 
