Please join the DFA’s docLOVE Screenings Programme for a special screening in celebration of Mandela Month of Intellectual Giants of the Eastern Cape directed by DFA member Alette Schoon

In the 19th and early 20th century, thousands of black South Africans embraced education through the mission schools of the Eastern Cape. It is from these people that several generations of Eastern Cape intellectuals emerged: people like Tiyo Soga, SEK Mqhayi, Phyllis Ntantala, and JT Jabavu. Yet these intellectuals did not simply assimilate into colonial ways of thinking, they resisted these frameworks, and instead developed their own ideas. It is no accident that it is the Eastern Cape where groundbreaking ideas of black theology, black consciousness, and the democratic values of modern South Africa developed, alongside rich literary and musical traditions. Isaac Newton famously recognised the intellectuals whose work enabled his own by saying “If I have seen further than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants”.