MAPANTSULA, screenplay

136pp., illus., paperback, New Edition, Cape Town, (1991) 2024

Panic, a small-time hood operating in Johannesburg and Soweto during the political upheavals of the 1980s, experiences a sudden political conversion.

Mapantsula was released in 1988 to local and international acclaim, and became the first South African film to be screened in competition at Cannes. Banned by the apartheid authorities, it nevertheless won the South African M-Net AA Life Vita Award.

Includes an introduction by film critic Guy Lodge; foreword by film curator Trevor Steele Taylor; director's notes by Oliver Schmitz; original interviews with Oliver Schmitz and Thomas Mogotlane by producer Jerry Nathan, and a more recent interview with Oliver Schmitz by Marcus Mabusela.

German/South African film and TV director, writer and producer Oliver Schmitz has made five films for cinema, including the omnibus Paris je t'aime, Life Above All and Shepherds and Butchers. He lives in Berlin.

South African actor and screenwriter Thomas Mogotlane (1953-1993) is known for The Toothman and Killer (1990) and Kwagga Strikes Back (1990).