WEEK 3 TSOTSI MOVIE NOTES Film Introduction From 2005 (South Africa) Very topical in terms of reflecting what’s going on in modern South Africa 94 minutes In several languages oZulu oAfrikaans oEnglish oSomething else I can’t spell Takes place in a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa oThe Suburb is called Soweto which is just Southwest of Johannesburg About life for the lowest, poorest classes here in the modern world South Africa is the southernmost state in Africa (which is a continent) oIt is about two times the size of Texas oThe 25thlargest country in the world oPeople think Africa is tropical and full of jungles but South Africa is in the mid latitudes (22 to 35 degrees latitude) oThis means it has a temperate climate oSouth Africa has a mixed bag of things Steppe Desert Mountains Scrub land Grassland Mediterranean style climate (rimming much of the coast land) oHe thinks of South Africa in terms of climate, much like Spain oBut this movie takes place mostly in the city Africa has about 53 million people in it right now oRAINBOW nation 79% Black African 9% colored Fairly offensive in American but government defined term in South Africa It means some sort of mixed race 9% white 2.5% India or Asian oHow so mixed? South Africa started out in the modern area as a colony of the Dutch

1652 Jan Van Riebeeck led the founding of a “refreshment” station (trading post) at the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company Originally, the company was not interested in establishing a permanent settlement However, in order to ensure viability of the refreshment station, some employees of the Company’s Cape Colony were freed from their contracts and allowed to farm and the frontier spirit took hold The pushed inward and eventually found gold and diamonds so everybody wanted more land It was so popular as a trading center and mineral extraction became such an economic lucrative activity that the British got involved In 1795, Brits took over Cape Colony as a mostly strategic move: oTo deny it to other European powers (specifically the French under Napoleon who dominated the Dutch oThe Dutch and the British fought several nasty wars to take over this place (which became independent in the 1900’s) Anglo-Zulu War (1879) First Boer War (1880-1881) Second Boer War (1899-1902) Third Boer Revolt (1914) South Africa has the 28thlargest economy on the planet oIt has a GDP of 350 or 400 billion oIt is a Brics country now  meaning that it’s had really good growth in the last 10 years They’ve kind of stagnated and dropped off in the last 4 or 5 years oIt has a well and fully developed economy This means that it’s not just resourced based and their not just making money off of oil or diamonds They have a lot of industry, technology, and service sector work oNigeria now has the largest economy in Africa (this just happened this year) 