SAM NZIMA FROM VILLAGER TO WORLD-ACCLAIMED PHOTOGRAPHER

SNAP: Just a click at the right place and time had produced an iconic picture that shook the world…

By  Jacob Mawela

An electrifying documentary film about legendary photographer Sam Nzima who snapped the iconic image of a dying young Hector Pietersen during the June 16 Soweto student uprisings premiered at the Joburg Film Festival on Wednesday.

Titled Sam Nzima: A Journey Through His Lens, the documentary is the brainchild of Thulani Nzima, the son of the late The World newspaper lensman, along with local filmmaker Nhlanhla Mthethwa of Full Circle Productions. It was screened at the Sandton Theatre on the Square as part of the annual Joburg Film Festival.

 A long 10 years in the making since production commenced in 2014, the 90-minute chronicle on the creator of the world renowned image of a distraught Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying a 13-year-old Hector Pietersen, who shot by police during a march organised by Soweto students in protest against the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. The image was adjudged by TIME magazine as one of top 100 photographs of all time that shaped the human experience and changed the course of history.

Mthethwa’s doccie is the first-ever in-depth glimpse into the life and times of the photograph’s creator as opposed to the reliving of his historic creation. A masterly and telling visual narration, the producer and his young crew – whio include award-winning editor Ikaye Masisi – have undeniably delivered!

At the premiere, Thulani told the audience that the photograph  that started all the trouble had all along been better known than the man himself!

For his part, Mthethwa has undoubtedly executed the assignment of raising Nzima’s persona above his art as nothing but a labour love, showing his mettle and passion as the experienced producer of films on historic figures such as Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Thabo Mbeki, among an array of notables. Suffice to say the final product constitutes a fulfilment of a promise he made to Nzima!

The structure of the film takes the viewer to-and-from the fateful day on June 16, 1976 whose dawn Nzima didn’t have the slightest idea – except his curiosity having being piqued by a tip from a reliable source a day prior, that something was in the offing – that destiny had chosen him to become an unwitting protagonist in an imminent event of colossal reverberations!

The rest is history.

Utilising its absorbing and intense storyline with the interspersing of both galvanising still imagery and mostly rare and previously unseen video footage, the flick limns Nzima’s life situation in the then Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga) prior to his arrival to Johannesburg to embark on a career in journalism. Then it follows Nzima’s flight back to the land of his origins in the aftermath of the splashing of the famous monochromatic image around the world – stirred to outrage at the time – after the then Justice Minister Jimmy Kruger’s securocrats who threw a dragnet in search of him for daring expose Apartheid’s excesses to the international community!

Tantamount to a forced exile, Nzima had to literally flee from Joburg, his family and his job after the infamous Special Branch policeman, Hlubi, ironically warned him the regime was out to get him in reprisal for the embarrassment his image had caused it!

The World newspaper editor, Percy Qoboza, had become alarmed and concerned for his life after Nzima had received an ominous invitation to John Vorster Square “for coffee.” Warning him that it’d be the last the editorial staff would see of him were he to accede to the request, Nzima – much to the sorrow of his wife Thelma – instantly fled for his life to his home village of Lillydale in Bushbuckridge.

This drastic act meant the ending of his beloved career and marked a period of a man forced to retreat into his own shell as he spent days on end brooding on what could have been of both his life and means of livelihood.

Provincial policemen began periodic visits to his place to make him sign a sort of a register as proof that he remained confined there – with one gleefully taunting him that his province wouldn’t tolerate what he was up to in Joburg and that failure to adhere would imply dire consequences for him!

Engagingly rolling with a combination of visuals from the mid-seventies, family photo album and skilfully edited videography – the doccie features historic clips depicting prominent figures of the Struggle such as Winnie Madikizela, Soweto student leader Tsietsi Mashinini. They also include personally conducted interviews of others such as Seth Mazibuko, Sibongile Mkhabela, Dr Thami Mazwai, Joe Tlholoe as well as fellow photographers in the ilk of ex-colleague of Nzima’s Tom Khoza. Other interviews feature the younger generation of photographers, Ruth Motau and Siphiwe Mhlambi.

Khoza delves into the sequence of events of the day and how the precious roll of film was moved from the location of the incident to the publication and straight onto the darkroom, where he oversaw the process of its development and the discussion which ensued amongst The World’s editors and the ultimate decision to splash it on the paper’s front page to expose atrocities visited upon schoolchildren, who were merely protesting the use of the Afrikaans language in their classrooms.

Overhead images recorded from helicopter depicting poignant scenes of mayhem below on the streets of Soweto also flash throughout the course of the doccie. These include one of a Putco bus which had crashed into a four-roomed house; overturned vehicles, burning structures and teargas smoke-filled footage of the riot scences, snarling police dogs and schoolchildren in various instances confronting with rifle-toting policemen!

Mention is made of struggle stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and World reporter Duma Ndlovu driving around in their Volkswagen Beetles, ferrying injured children to Baragwanath Hospital for treatment. Chaos, danger and death, permeating the air.

Crisscrossing a myriad stories within the main one, a cute one focusses on Nzima’s courting of his future wife, Thelma, then a nurse at Baragwanath Hospital. A female acquaintance had initially shown Nzima a coterie of ladies who initially didn’t include Thelma to choose from – with the lensman adamantly settling on her and tying the knot with her in 1969.

Encompassing a stretch of time pending its production, the doccie (which had seasoned journalist Barney Mthombothi as a consultant) also covers Nzima’s funeral in 2018, which like the recent one of a fellow photographer he revered photographer Peter Magubane, was accorded special official status with SAPS ceremonial honours. Nzima passed away after a short illness on May 12 2018, aged 83.

Additionally, footage of the souvenir from the moment of his receiving the Order of Ikhamanga from then President Jacob Zuma is beamed as a highlight.

At a post-screening panel discussion, Mthethwa proudly mentioned that his was a local story homemade as opposed to an upcoming documentary on the late South African-born photographer, Ernest Cole, mooted to be produced by American director Raoul Peck. He described his endeavour as akin to, “stand on the shoulders of the people who were there before us!”

Sam Nzima Foundation honcho Dr Reuel Khoza intoned the African proverb during the discussion: “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter!”

An independent platform presented by MultiChoice, the festival’s mission statement is the curation and showcasing of African and international films whilst providing youth as well as aspirant and established filmmakers and industry professionals with various opportunities for development, training skills transfer and networking.