‘One Humanity’ tells powerful

‘One Humanity’ tells powerful narrative of South Africa’s rebirth

The documentary ‘One Humanity’ is an emotional time travelling trip recounting the occasion in which the whole world united for a common cause — the end of apartheid in South Africa. It poignantly conveys a singular message, which director Mickey Dube says he kept in his sights throughout: “I wanted to capture this essence of humanity, this soft part we call caring”.

‘One Humanity’ tells powerful

I settle down in my cinema seat at BAFTA in London. The lights dim and the screen lights up. Some 8000 miles south, in Pretoria, a similar audience prepares to view the same premiere – a simultaneous broadcast of One Humanity. It is Sunday 27 April 2014, twenty years since Nelson Mandela was voted in as the first black president of South Africa, in the first democratic South African elections.

Directed by award-winning Mickey Madoda Dube, One Humanity recounts the time when the whole world united for a common cause — the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa. As I watch the flickering mosaic of film clips, I cannot help remembering where I was on 27 April 1994. In just a few moments I am transported back to a queue at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, on the cusp of change in South Africa, about to make my mark along with my fellow students. Even then we had a sense of the gravity of the moment.

I am reminded that my small mark on a piece of paper in a poll twenty years previously is, as one anti-apartheid activist says in the film, a “little drop in a stream. The drops became a flood. Everyone felt they were doing something.”

One Humanity demonstrates through old BBC news clips how, as the anti-apartheid movement mounted in the UK, everyone took a stand. From a housewife refusing to buy Outspan Oranges to protestors in Trafalgar Square.

One Humanity is a superbly emotional time travelling trip through a myriad of historic archive footage from two star-studded global broadcasts produced by UK producer Tony Hollingsworth, interspersed with aged film clips spanning some fifty years in apartheid South Africa. It poignantly conveys a singular message, which director Mickey Dube says he kept in his sights throughout the making of the documentary: “I wanted to capture this essence of humanity, this soft part we call ‘caring’”.

Dube, known for his work in both TV and film in South Africa, co-founded 1TakeMedia and notably won the Amnesty International Award for his documentary Sobukwe: A great Soul. Dube won a Fulbright Scholarship and studied at the USC in Los Angeles. Dube attended the London premiere at BAFTA, while producer Dan Jawits attended the Pretoria event. Jawits emphasised the strength and importance of international partnership in the making of One Humanity as well as the joy of “experiencing our struggle with a superb soundtrack.”

The TV broadcasts of the Wembley concerts for Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday in 1988 and the acknowledgement of his release in 1990 reached millions of viewers world-wide and are the only two occasions in history in which the world’s broadcasters have come together for a political cause. With the help of the live satellite link between London and Pretoria this dual premiere of One Humanity achieved a sort of dramatic ‘inclusio’ to commemorate Freedom Day.

Ruminations from various celebrities and artists, as well as interviews with key players in the anti-apartheid struggle, beautifully illustrate how music managed to unify world opinion in a way that no impassioned political campaign could have done.

“There was a ‘cause’, but music was the drive.” insists Tony Hollingsworth, “Audiences respond better when you focus on the positive.”

There was a unifying feeling, of brotherhood, sisterhood, humanity,” remembers Annie Lennox.

South Africans, in a time and in a country, hermetically sealed from the views and anti-apartheid rumblings of the world, sheltered and perhaps a little naive, would have seen little of this footage when it was broadcast. South African or not, one cannot help but feel a tightness in the throat at the powerful narrative of a world crying out for justice and freedom on behalf of a people who so desperately needed it.

There was more than one teary eye when the lights came up. This is a must see for South Africans and, at the very least, a nostalgic trip down memory lane for the world.

More details: www.onehumanityfilm.com