ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
The story told by former political prisoners of how music and song brought resistance and hope to apartheid prisons in South Africa.

SYNOPSIS
Drawing on the wider historical context of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, KEEPING TIME is a documentary film exploring how music played a critical role as resistance for political prisoners inside South African jails over three decades (1960-1990), especially at Robben Island, the notorious maximum security prison which held Nelson Mandela for 18 years, and the women’s prison, Number 4, in Johannesburg. Narrated by former political prisoners, interlaced with historical archival footage creating an historical narrative of key moments from the apartheid era, it shows how music performance—from indigenous African genres like isicathamiya and mbaqanga to cape jazz, traditional migrant work songs, classical, rock, reggae and Indian ragas—provided resistance, critique, community, therapy, memory and identity for political prisoners, undermining the white supremacist government and transcending political, linguistic and ethnic differences to unite an oppressed people against a common enemy. With this rare film footage, authentic music, photographs and an on-the-ground stylistic approach, we immerse our audience in the lives of our former political prisoners and their momentous historical times. Until now, no film has ever explored the essential role of music at Robben Island and at other apartheid jails where communities diversified by tribal, racial and language identities turned political oppression and physical imprisonment to political advantage via the idiom of African sacred and popular song.

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature

DIRECTOR Lindy Wilson
PRODUCER Carolyn Carew
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Brian Tilley, Laurence Dworkin, Janie Cole, Nancy Galdy

WEBSITE musicbeyondborders.net