MOVIE • 1981

Cry Freedom

Our people shall be free

Balogun's most political film is a confrontation with the African wars of liberation. Based on Carcase for Hounds, Meja Mwangi's novel about the Mau-Mau uprising, it is set in an unnamed country and thus offers the vision of a pan-African struggle for freedom and against colonial oppression. The central figures in the straightforwardly and powerfully told story are the guerrilla leader Haraka and his adversary, the English colonial official Kingsley. In the end, the film becomes a homage to the freedom fighters from all over Africa: the final images show Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela and Amílcar Cabral, among others.