Introduction

This chapter explores why and how African wildlife documentary moved significantly from East to Southern Africa in the late 1970s and 1980s, at a time when southern Africa faced considerable political turmoil: the struggle for independence in South-West Africa/Namibia; the June 1976 upheavals in Soweto; the battle for independence in Mozambique and Angola.

Chapter 4 will examine the importance of the rise of private lodges and a guiding culture in more detail and Chapter 5 outlines, through a critical comparison of Southern African with British productions, and particularly those of the BBC’s NHU, what the distinctive strengths and achievements of Southern African wildlife productions were and are. These chapters thus summarize much of the material that will be covered in more detail in later chapters that take a more historical and chronological approach.

Drawing on the theoretical insights of Bourdieu, Latour and Peters, this chapter examines three major sets of factors, agents and infrastructures: the background of the filmmakers; the legal, economic and political factors enabling the development of a local industry; and the crucial agents and infrastructures that enabled Southern Africans to go beyond relying on outsiders who made films in Africa. These cultural, political, economic and technological factors made it possible for Southern Africa to move from being simply a site for colonial or imperial production to being a place where Southern Africans were, arguably, producing the most interesting work in the genre. Given the difficulties subordinated formerly colonial cultures have in achieving this kind of cultural status, the achievement and the conditions for it matter.

The Filmmakers

Who were the filmmakers producing the major documentaries and what brought them to Southern Africa during this period if they came from other countries? I asked Jen Bartlett why she and her husband Des, both Australian-born, but the first major filmmaking couple in East Africa who had worked with Armand Denis and inspired Alan and Joan Root, had ended up in the Namib and spent the last years of their career in Southern Africa. Her answer succinctly sets out the push and pull factors involved in their eventual settling in Namibia: