Ocean State Libraries

"Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy. Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles...

A captivating view of the incredible spirit of one of the world's most fascinating people, this full-length documentary follows Nelson Mandela form his early days and tribal education to his election as South Africa's first black president.

Sarafina is a schoolgirl at school in Soweto, South Africa. She learns only the history of the whites in South Africa but her history teacher (Goldberg) secretly teaches the students to be proud of their heritage and make a stand against apartheid. The film features beautiful South African music, choirs and percussion.

Poetry, politics, madness, and desire collide in the true story of the woman hailed as South Africa's finest poet. In 1960s Cape Town, as Apartheid steals the expressive rights of blacks and whites alike, young Ingrid Jonker finds her freedom scrawling verse while frittering through a series of stormy affairs. Amid escalating quarrels with her lovers and her rigid father, a parliament censorship minister, the poet witnesses an unconscionable event...

In the pressure cooker of apartheid South Africa, free-spirited Amina meets Miriam, a traditional wife and mother. Their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her, forcing both women to face outrage and violent disapproval.

"A coming-of-age war musical about a small town boy who gets chosen to serve his compulsory two year military training in the South African Defence Force Choir and Concert group- known as the 'Canaries'- during the height of the Apartheid regime." --

In Inside Apartheid, South African-born Janet Levine recounts the horrors and struggles she faced against the minority white government's brutal system of repression from a rare perspective-that of a white woman who worked within the system even as she fought to transform it.   With candor and courage, Levine skillfully interweaves her personal story of a privileged white citizen's growing awareness of the evils of apartheid with a moving account...

James Gregory is a racist South African guard whose certainties of life are shaken to the core. During a twenty year span, James spent his time as Nelson Mandela's prison warden. Shows the daily application of a major historic abonimation, known as Apartheid, as seen through the eyes of the average White South African. These are 'ordinary' people who are neither heroes nor villains, but obtuse conformists. The violence of the system on its white citizens...

Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Aushwitz. Jakob Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakob fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They intend to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl's unscheduled train reaches the bomb first. Gretl is the only survivor. Though spared from the concentration camp, the orphaned German Jew finds herself lost...