An international sports boycott takes shape when African teams refuse to compete in the Olympics with South Africa's all-white teams. Only SA's world champion Springboks rugby team remains on the field.

d. Connie Field, USA 2009 DOC
English, Video, 96 min

"We understood, as South Africans, the significance of sport for white South Africa. It was like a religion. And if you hit them hard, then you were really getting the message across that they were not welcome in the world as long as they practiced racism in sport."
- Abdul Minty, SA exile, British Anti-Apartheid Movement 1959 - 1994

Faced with governments reluctant to take meaningful action against the apartheid regime, athletes and activists around the world hit white South Africa where it hurts: on the playing field. International boycotts against apartheid sports teams help bring the human rights crisis in South Africa to the forefront of global attention and sever white South Africans' cultural ties to the West. Knowing that fellow blacks in South Africa were denied even the most basic human rights - let alone the right to participate in international sports competitions -African nations refuse to compete with all-white South African teams, boycotting the Olympics and creating a worldwide media spectacle that forces the International Olympic Committee to ban apartheid teams from future games. The Africa-led coalition leads the fight to exclude South Africa from soccer, boxing, track, cycling, judo, fencing, gymnastics, volleyball and numerous other competitions, barring South African teams from nearly all sports events by the 1970s. Only South Africa's world champion rugby team remains, and citizens in key western countries where rugby is played take to the fields to close the last door on apartheid sports. The sports campaign becomes the anti-apartheid movement's first victory and succeeds in culturally isolating the white minority in an arena of passionate importance. (96 minutes)

HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG is a powerful seven-part documentary series by two-time Academy Award nominee Connie Field that shines light on the global citizens movements that took on South Africa's apartheid regime. It reveals how everyday people helped challenge and end one of the greatest injustices the world has ever known.
HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG begins with the story of freedom fighters in South Africa who are systemically killed, jailed or exiled for resisting their political oppression. Embattled South Africans call on the global community to take action, laying the groundwork for a decades-long international campaign. People around the world take up the anti-apartheid cause, challenging their governments, powerful corporations and other institutions to face up to the immorality of their collaboration with apartheid. HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG follows three generations of the struggle inside South Africa and battles waged in sports arenas and cathedrals, in embassies and corporate boardrooms, at rock concerts and in gas stations around the globe. Pulling together the many threads of international anti-apartheid action for the first time in any medium, HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG is an inspiring example for citizens and movements around the world.

One of the greatest weapons in the struggle against apartheid was the international sports boycott. Featuring a youthful Dennis Brutus at his brilliant best, Sam Ramsamy, Peter Hain, sports personalities and administrators, this meticulously researched documentary, with rare footage and revealing back story, unpacks the process of how the boycott took shape and effect. Step by difficult step, a dedicated and growing group of activists orchestrated the isolation of South Africa from the sports arenas, culminating in South Africa's exclusion first from the Olympics, and then, finally, where it hurt most, from international rugby.

Producer/Director: CONNIE FIELD

Series Editor: GREGORY SCHARPEN
Principal Cinematography: TOM HURWITZ
Principal Historical Consultants: DR. GAIL GERHART, DR. ROBERT EDGAR, DR. CLAYBORNE CARSON, E.S. REDDY

Principal Funders: THE FORD FOUNDATION, THE JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION, THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES


For more information about the series, visit http://www.clarityfilms.org. To get involved in the global engagement campaign around the series, please visit http://activevoice.net/haveyouheard.html.

Tags :
anti-apartheid movement apartheid South Africa social justice human rights racism documentary Oliver Tambo Nelson Mandela history