Sarafina!

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About the film

africa south africa apartheid musical based on play or musical soweto

Sarafina!

Release Date: September 18, 1992

Year	:	1992
Slogan	:	«She was their teacher. They were her hope.»
Genres	:	Music, Drama, Family
Production Companies	:	BBC, Miramax, Vanguard Films, Hollywood Pictures, Distant Horizon, Ideal, Les Films Ariane, Vanguard Productions, Videovision Entertainment
Director	:	Darrell James Roodt
Producers	:	David M. Thompson, Anant Singh, Helena Spring, Kirk D'Amico, Sudhir Pragjee, Sanjeev Singh, Tania Jenkins
Writers	:	William Nicholson, Mbongeni Ngema, Mbongeni Ngema
RunTime	:	117 mins.

The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The stage version presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the school girl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when a policeman shoots several pupils in a classroom. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of act two. In the movie version Sarafina feels shame at her mother's (played by Miriam Makeba in the film) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.