Culture & education

In order to raise public awareness and to fulfil its role as a community archive, GALA has implemented an outreach strategy that uses theatre and film productions as well as an innovative tour called "Queer Johannesburg". This is complemented by more traditional methods, such as exhibits.

Documentaries

GALA has been intimately involved in producing three documentary films, as well as collaborating on several others. These are described below. For information on how to order copies of these films, contact GALA.

Property of the State: Gay Men in the Apartheid Military

A 52-minute documentary directed by Gerald Kraak and produced by Jill Kruger. In English. See the photo gallery.

Property of the State deals with the contradictory experience of gay men in the apartheid military -an environment in which homosexuals sometimes found erotic space, but mostly encountered hostility. It draws on a literary exploration of gay experience in the military in the "grensverhaal" (border story) genre of the 1980s as well as interviews with conscripts who served in the South African Defense Force and anti-military activists.

Property of the state paints a harrowing picture of forced conscription in the 1970s and 1980s and brings to light a hidden history of persecution, which was an integral aspect of the brutality of apartheid.

Judge Edwin Cameron had the following to say about the documentary: “What is impressive is its rich visual and emotional colourings, its unhysterical pace and tone, its intellectual and emotional depth, interspersed with considerable verve and humour… It is important that, in this film, queers in the military are not represented as victims only, but as observers, resisters, critics, commentators and participants."

Property of the State was scripted and directed by Gerald Kraak and produced by Jill Kruger (who collaborated with the late Mpumi Njinje on the ground-breaking My Son the Bride recently flighted by M-Net). Creative director Shaun Cameron has a strong track record in South African documentary and feature films. The film is co-funded by GALA, Out-in-Africa, National Film and Video Foundation, and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Property of the State received its official premiere at the annual Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in March 2003, and subsequently was screened on SABC 3.

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Everything Must Come To Light (2002)

A documentary by Paulo Alberton and Mpumi Njinge. Produced by Ruth Morgan. A co-production of the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa and the Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. 25 minutes. English subtitles.

This documentary focuses on the lives of three dynamic same-sex identified women who are sangomas (traditional healers) living in Soweto, South Africa.

They are articulate, sympathetic women who are willing to share their stories. This is an unusual story in a realm that is often shrouded in silence and secrecy. After leaving their husbands, two of the women were able to explore their sexuality in relation to other women as a result of their dominant male ancestors instructing them to take wives. The relationship with their ancestors and the roles that they play in their healing powers and their sexuality are focal points in this documentary.

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Simon and I (2002)

A documentary directed by Beverly Palesa Ditsie and produced by Nicky Newman, See Thru Media. The film was commissioned by STEPS (Social Transformation and Empowerment Projects) as part of its Steps for the Future project, a collection of documentaries and short films from Southern Africa. 52 minutes. English.

This documentary recounts the lives of Simon Nkoli and the maker of the documentary, Bev Ditsie, two prominent figures in the South African gay and lesbian liberation movement. The film is described in publicity material as "a personal statement and a political history" as Bev Ditsie charts her relationship with Simon Nkoli "through good times and bad against a backdrop of intense political activism and the HIV/ AIDS crisis". The film makes use of a mixed format of interviews and archival footage. Many of the photographs, letters and other documents featured in the film are housed at GALA.

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Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free (2001)

A documentary by Paulo Alberton and Graeme Reid. A co-production of Franmi Productions (Brazil), the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa, and Vidiola. 52 minutes. English subtitles.

Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free is a video documentary that follows a network of gay friends and hair stylists to small towns, rural areas and urban peripheries in South Africa. The film emerged from an interest in hairstyling saloons as a social and cultural space for gay men living in out of the way places. The networks that exist between stylists in different towns, the invisible threads that link these gay men to each other and to friends in the cities, is a path explored in this documentary.

Presenter Zakhi Radebe, and behind the scenes directors Paulo Alberton and Graeme Reid travel through the provinces of Gauteng, Mpumalanga, the Free State, the Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal. They and the audience meet stylists who are also preachers, chorists, traditional healers, beauty queens and socialites. Through them we find out about the creative possibilities for living outside of South Africa's main urban centres.

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Josi: the Queer Tour (1999)

A documentary by Paulo Alberton, Graeme Reid and the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa. 29 minutes. English.

This short documentary gives a unique insight into the history of lesbian and gay cultural identity in Johannesburg. Explore South African society through this queer tour put together by historians, anthropologists and researchers to serve tourists and participants of the ILGA conference, Johannesburg, September 1999. An actual tour of queer Johannesburg is also availaible.