End Of The Dialogue

In 1969, a group of exiled South African activists formed a collective with British film students in London with the aim of presenting the world with visual evidence of the the impact of the South African whites-only government's racial segregation policies on the country's black population. End Of The Dialogue is the first fruit of their tortuous labour, a film based on footage they filmed secretly in South Africa and then smuggled to Britain for post-production. While the film illustrates their message loud and clear, it doesn't do so simply through tubthumping: over a calm and matter-of-fact narration, the documentary is a masterful editing exercise, as the filmmakers contrast the white minority's opulent existence (rugby, mansions, marching bands) with the black majority's squalid lives (4am commutes, dusty roads in dilapidated townships, barren schools), and how the latter - alongside the "coloured" and the "Asiatics" - were condemned to a less-than-human existence.