Have You Seen Drum Recently

ABOUT

An evocation of the people, places, music, song, dance, sport and politics that was urban black

South Africa in the 1950s, and which the iconic magazine Drum both represented and informed.

Driven by the music of the 1950s and the stills of the period’s best known photographic

chroniclers, the aesthetic of the documentary is at one with the essences of the era and strikes the

nostalgic chord that was the formative experience of Black South Africans of the time.

The hilarious anecdotes about the absurdities of apartheid and the representation of the contradictory

engagement with it, is rare and priceless in accounts of South African history. “Life in the

townships in the 1950s,” as Stan Motjuwadi says, “was rough, tough and real fun”. Featuring,

among a wealth of others, stories of investigative journalist Henry Nxumalo; agony aunt Dolly

Hassim; politician Jacky Heyns; and writers Peter Abrahams, Zeke Mphahlele and Lewis Nkosi.

DIRECTIONS