Biko: Breaking The Silence

The death of Stephen Biko in 1977 at the hands of the South African white government was an injustice that was recognized throughout the world. Using director Richard Attenborough's filming of Cry Freedom as the focal point, this biography charts the course of Biko's life, brutal death, and subsequent martyrdom. Interviews with Attenborough and Donald Woods (the journalist who broke Biko's story to the South Africans, and was later fired) underscore the importance of bringing this non-violent Black Student Movement leader's quest for a free South Africa to the world's attention. Biko's speeches, his exile to Prince William's Town, his creation of a support agency which offered medical help and promoted literacy (and was later destroyed by the South African police) are all used to create a portrait of a man who was steadily gaining the ear of the people --before the government, completely underestimating Biko's influence, had him picked up, tortured, and driven to an interrogation site (a long journey which Biko did not complete alive). Adding to their folly, government officials released a bogus story of Biko's "self-starvation" program as the cause of death. A later inquest revealed the truth. A powerful in-depth documentary of an extraordinary man and his legacy in bringing the evils of apartheid to the world at large. Highly recommended. (See AFTER THE HUNGER AND THE DROUGHT for availability.)