Film screening: Mapantsula

Join us for a curator tour of Igshaan Adams: Weerhoud and a film screening of the South African cult classic Mapantsula – the first anti-apartheid film about the black experience in South Africa. 

A true classic of guerrilla filmmaking, Mapantsula (1988, Dir. Oliver Schmitz) is now available to watch in stunning 4K after years of suppression, marking the 30th anniversary of South African Freedom Day in 2024.

Director Oliver Schmitz worked closely with co-writer and lead actor Thomas Mogotlane to produce a film under extreme censorship, and by evasion of the authorities, they bravely created a radical and rare anti-apartheid feature film. Mapantsula tells the story of Panic, a small-time hood who believes he sees all the angles. But he is soon in the web of the authorities, pushed to betray the revolutionaries fighting for change.

More than a gripping crime story, Mapantsula is an almost miraculous opportunity to understand South Africa from within during its struggle for freedom, centred on the choices offered to Panic by a system set out to dehumanise him. Vital, humane and unvarnished, this is the time to reckon with Mapantsula.

This film has been rated a 15 by the British Board of Film Classification.

Presented at The Hepworth Wakefield in partnership with Cinema Africa! and Maona Art, in collaboration with the Independent Cinema Office.