South Africa Clears ‘Cry Freedom’--No Cuts or Restrictions : Decision on Anti-Apartheid Film a Surprise to Many

The new anti-apartheid film “Cry Freedom” was cleared by South African government censors on Friday for screening here without cuts or restrictions.

The government decision took many here by surprise because “Cry Freedom,” in portraying the life and death of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko and his friendship with a liberal white newspaper editor, cuts across a number of the country’s most sensitive political issues.

When the film is screened here, South African moviegoers will see a dramatic, if somewhat fictionalized, portrayal of black resistance to minority white rule and the tough police action taken to contain it--the kind of events that today cannot be fully reported by the news media here under the government’s emergency regulations.

The decision will also effectively permit Donald Woods, the white editor whose two books about Biko formed the basis of the screenplay, to speak through the film to a South African audience for the first time since he was “banned” and barred from politics after Biko’s death in police custody 10 years ago. Woods currently lives in exile in Britain.

Braam Coetzee, the government’s publications director, said on Friday that he and the members of the review committee were aware of the intense speculation over whether “Cry Freedom” would be approved but that they had sought to make a decision on the film’s merits.

“It is one of the endeavors of all involved in publications control not to be influenced by any outside factors but to have an objective and scientific examination as far as possible,” Coetzee said in Cape Town.

South African law requires all films to be reviewed by government censors prior to public showing. The censors have considerable discretion on whether or not to permit a movie to be screened, to require cuts or to impose other restrictions. The law authorizes such censorship on grounds of state security and potential harm to interracial relations.

“Everyone tried to rid himself of any preconceived idea or attitude when he viewed the film,” Coetzee said. “The decision arrived at is an indication of the committee’s objectivity.”

Only last week, however, government censors banned “No Fears Expressed,” a book of Biko quotations. As is customary, no reason was given for that decision.

In founding the Black Consciousness movement here, Biko (portrayed in the movie by Denzel Washington) urged blacks to depend only on their own strength in attempting to bring an end to apartheid’s system of racial separation and minority white rule. “Black man, you are on your own,” he used to say.

Yet, Biko developed a strong friendship with Woods (portrayed by Kevin Kline), transforming him from a typical white liberal, supporting cautious reforms, into a strong advocate of fundamental political, economic and social changes in the country.

Universal Pictures and UIP, “Cry Freedom’s” U.S. producer and its international distributor, earlier this week challenged the government to approve the film uncut for viewing in integrated theaters, offering to turn over all profits from South Africa exhibition of the film to the UNICEF fund for South Africa.

The government’s decision to accept the film came as a shock to Universal Pictures chairman Thomas Pollock, who was reached Friday at a hotel in Santa Barbara.

“We are all stunned, amazed and delighted,” Pollock said. “What the government is saying is that although the books upon which this movie is based are banned, the movie itself is not banned . . . . If that’s true, it could mean the government is going to open up all sorts of things.”

Pollock said UIP will open the film in South Africa as soon as possible, but he doubted that theaters will be available until after Christmas.

“Cry Freedom” director Richard Attenborough has maintained all along that he would not allow the film to be shown in South Africa with government-mandated cuts, and he said earlier this week that he had little hope of it ever being seen in that country.

Attenborough could not be reached Friday for comment. He was reportedly attending an opening-night screening of “Cry Freedom” in London.

Pollock said he believes that the studio’s challenge played a part in the government’s decision Friday.

“The purpose of our challenge was to make their choice more difficult, and it had that impact,” Pollock said. “It’s exciting to think that this movie . . . could help change the South African government. It is kind of heady to think that way . . . “

Some government officials, however, saw in Pollock’s “challenge” an effort to win bigger audiences for “Cry Freedom” worldwide.

“A film that has been banned in South Africa for political reasons has a certain cachet that you just can’t buy,” one senior official commented. “So, why should we help them attract larger audiences by banning it? A film approved for viewing in South Africa, by the same logic, can’t be very good, very radical or even very interesting.”

Most South Africans, however, know only of the film from reviews written by the overseas correspondents of local newspapers. The Johannesburg Star’s Washington correspondent, for example, described the movie as placing “a powerful focus on South Africa’s racial turbulence and the horrors of apartheid” and suggested that it might “serve as a catalyst for yet another international surge of outrage.”

Jack Mathews contributed to this story.