"Song is what keeps us alive."
-- Lindiwe Zulu (Freedom Fighter)
The power of song to communicate, motivate, console, unite and,
ultimately, beget change: that ideal, gloriously realized, lies at the
heart of director Lee Hirsch's inspiring feature film documentary
Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony. Winner of the Audience
Award and Freedom of Expression Award at the 2002 Sundance Film
Festival, Amandla! tells the story of black South African freedom music
and reveals the central role it played in the long battle against
apartheid. The first film to specifically consider the music that
sustained and galvanized black South Africans for more than 40 years,
Amandla!'s focus is on the struggle's spiritual dimension, as
articulated and embodied in song. It is unlike any other film yet made
on the subject of apartheid, and an electrically expressive portrait of
South African life then and now.
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