MOVIE • 2003

Property of the State: Gay Men in the Apartheid Military

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This documentary deals with the contradictory experience of gay men in the military during apartheid in South Africa - an environment in which homosexuals sometimes found erotic space, but mostly encountered hostility. It draws on a literary exploration of gay experience in the military in the 'grensverhaal' (border story) genre of the 1980s as well as interviews with conscripts who served in the South African Defense Force and anti-military activists. The film paints a harrowing picture of forced conscription in the 1970s and 1980s and brings to light a hidden history of persecution, which was an integral aspect of the brutality of apartheid.