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”.

As South Africans, how can we be elevated to intellectual heights if we do not even know who our giants are? In this film Dr Hleze Kunju sets off on a roadtrip to introduce a new generation of students to the intellectual giants of the Eastern Cape and to invite them to walk in their footsteps. The various stops along the journey include the milkwood tree where the Mfengu embraced education, Rev Tiyo Soga’s church, Hunterstoun, Lovedale Institute, Lovedale Press and Fort Hare University, as well as several historic sites in Makhanda. As the first person to write his PhD in isiXhosa, Dr Hleze Kunju embodies an Eastern Cape intellectualism of embracing knowledge from different worlds and bringing them together in new ways of thinking. While he is an academic, he is also a performer and a trained opera singer, who takes every opportunity to share historic songs and poetry created by Eastern Cape intellectuals throughout the film.