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Cry Freedom is a feature film directed by Richard Attenborough, set in the late 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. The film was shot in neighbouring Zimbabwe, and, although not banned in South Africa, cinemas showing the films were faced with bomb threats. According to the Internet Movie Database, the film was seized by authorities on July 29, 1988. In some cases, there were reports that prints of the films were wrenched off the cinema projectors and the film remained unseen in South Africa until 1991. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (506x755, 79 KB) Licensing This image is of a movie poster or title card, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the movie or the studio which produced the movie in question. ...
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE (born August 29, 1923) is a prolific English film and stage actor, and Academy Award, BAFTA, and three-time Golden Globe winning director, producer, and entrepreneur. ...
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE (born August 29, 1923) is a prolific English film and stage actor, and Academy Award, BAFTA, and three-time Golden Globe winning director, producer, and entrepreneur. ...
Donald James Woods, CBE (December 15, 1933 – August 19, 2001) was a South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist. ...
Kevin Delaney Kline (born October 24, 1947) is an Academy Award- and Tony Award-winning American stage and film actor. ...
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. ...
John Thaw (left) as Inspector Morse John Edward Thaw CBE (3 January 1942 – 21 February 2002) was an English actor who achieved his first starring role in the military police television drama Redcap (1964 – 1966), and subsequently appeared in a range of television, stage and cinema roles. ...
George Fenton George Fenton (born October 19, 1950) is a British composer best known for his work writing film scores and music for television, although he also writes music for the theatre. ...
Jonas Mosa Gwangwa has been an important figure in South African jazz for over 40 years. ...
Universal Pictures is the main motion picture production/distribution arm of Universal Studios, a subsidiary of NBC Universal. ...
November 5 is the 309th day of the year (310th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 56 days remaining. ...
Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ...
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, CBE (born August 29, 1923) is a prolific English film and stage actor, and Academy Award, BAFTA, and three-time Golden Globe winning director, producer, and entrepreneur. ...
The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979. ...
A segregated beach in South Africa, 1982. ...
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...
July 29 is the 210th day of the year (211th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ...
Plot
Summary Cry Freedom is the story of Steve Biko, the charismatic South African Black Consciousness Movement leader, who was murdered while in police custody, and Donald Woods, the white editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper who befriended him. Woods wrote a book entitled Biko exposing the death of Biko while in Police custody. For him to get the book published, he had to escape from South Africa. This book, along with Woods's autobiography "Asking For Trouble," became the basis for this film. Stephen Biko Stephen Bantu Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a noted nonviolent anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s. ...
The Black Consciousness Movement was a movement which called for non-violent black resistance to the Apartheid government in South Africa. ...
Donald James Woods, CBE (December 15, 1933 – August 19, 2001) was a South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist. ...
Donald James Woods, CBE (December 15, 1933 – August 19, 2001) was a South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist. ...
Cry Freedom is the story of South African black activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington) and the relationship he forms with liberal white South African newspaper editor Donald Woods (Kevin Kline). When we meet him, Biko has already been "banned" by the South African government. "Banning" meant he was not allowed to be in the same room with more than one other person outside his immediate family, not allowed to write anything for either public or private consumption. Additionally, he was not allowed to leave his defined banning area. Initially, Woods is critical of Biko's views and actions in his newspaper but is persuaded to meet with him. Biko invites Woods to visit a black township to see the impoverished conditions under which 96% of South Africa's population live and to witness the effect of the government imposed restrictions which make up the apartheid system. Woods begins to agree with Biko's desire for a South Africa where blacks have the same opportunities and freedoms as those enjoyed by the white population. As Woods comes to understand Biko's point of view, a friendship develops between them.
Cast Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. ...
Kevin Delaney Kline (born October 24, 1947) is an Academy Award- and Tony Award-winning American stage and film actor. ...
Penelope Wilton OBE (born 3 June 1946) is an English actress who is well known for appearing in the sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles and in Cry Freedom. ...
John Thaw (left) as Inspector Morse John Edward Thaw CBE (3 January 1942 – 21 February 2002) was an English actor who achieved his first starring role in the military police television drama Redcap (1964 – 1966), and subsequently appeared in a range of television, stage and cinema roles. ...
For Robert Tyre Jones Jnr, the US golfer, see Bobby Jones Robert Jones was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, earned during the 1879 battle of battle of Rorkes Drift, South Africa, part of the Anglo-Zulu War. ...
Criticism In Cry Freedom, South African journalist Donald Woods is forced to flee for his life after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend, black activist and martyr Steven Biko. Some criticized the film for focusing more on (white) newspaper editor Woods, on whose written accounts of Biko the film was based, than on Biko himself, whose life is told in the movie mostly through his interactions with Woods. Others point out that Steve Biko's portrayal was sufficiently lengthy to earn actor Denzel Washington his first Oscar nomination (as a supporting actor) for playing that role.
Woods changed from a liberal newspaper editor with only a moderate concern for apartheid, to an internationally known figure who bravely endangered his and his family's safety to expose the injustices he discovered. Both Biko and Woods have been credited with helping to bring apartheid to an end, and it has also been argued that the complexities of Woods' ideological metamorphosis required more film time to reveal. It is not uncommon for political films to use characters that will lead the audience along the path toward understanding the filmmaker's point of view, particularly if the issue is controversial or not widely understood. In this case, an epic, English-language film aimed at a primarily Western audience, Kevin Kline's portrayal of Woods as a man who comes to see his complicity in the apartheid system may have been intended to induce the same realization in mainstream white viewers, as opposed to a film primarily about the life of Steve Biko, which in 1988 might have been seen to have a different audience or effect.
Some believe that the issue of whether Cry Freedom is about Steve Biko, or about Woods, is mute. Some have concluded that the story is actually about a long list of heroes who died in police custody during aparteid, and whose names and "official" causes of death are listed in the end credits. Two of them were said to have fallen down multiple flights of stairs "accidentally," and most were "suicidal hangings." Some believe the story is really all about them.
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