S. Africa Bans Showing of Film ‘Cry Freedom’ : Officials Allege Public Safety Threat, Pull Prints From Theaters After Premiere; Censor Overruled

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Only hours after “Cry Freedom” won approval from government censors and made its South African premiere Friday, the authorities banned the anti-apartheid movie as a threat to public safety and seized film reels from at least 30 theaters nationwide.

A multiracial crowd waiting for the 5 p.m. show outside a major downtown Johannesburg theater broke into shouts of “ Amandla ! Amandla !”--”power” in Zulu--when the manager announced that the movie had been canceled by government order. Some in the crowd sang freedom songs.

In Pietermaritzburg, two policemen arrived in the middle of the afternoon show and agreed to the theater manager’s request that they wait until the screening ended to take the film.

“How can they stop us from watching a movie about our own country?” said Guy Heenan, 21, a university student in Pietermaritzburg.

The film, directed by Richard Attenborough, depicts the friendship between black consciousness movement leader Steve Biko and white newspaper editor Donald Woods before Biko’s death in police custody in 1977. It was approved by government censors last November for exhibition to audiences of all ages.

A release date in April was postponed while the distributors sought assurances that exhibitors would not be prosecuted for material in the film. The film, through dialogue, quotes Woods, who as a “banned” person may not be quoted under South African law.

Although no assurances against prosecution were given, the worldwide distributor, Universal International Pictures, decided last month to go ahead with the release.

But trouble surfaced earlier this week, when the government home affairs minister asked the official censors, the Publications Appeals Board, to reconsider their approval. The board heard testimony Thursday and, minutes before the first showing began Friday, announced it again had approved the film. However, it restricted the film to audiences over the age of 19.

“The film does not present a risk to race relations or to the security of the state,” said Kobus van Rooyen, board chairman. “Even if the film was intended to evoke a revolutionary response among viewers, it fails dismally.”

But four hours later, the Minister of Justice, Hendrick J. Coetsee, said “Cry Freedom” violated the law against quoting banned persons, such as Woods, and the police commissioner dispatched officers to snap up the film prints.

Explosions and Threats

The film’s debut here was punctuated by a rash of explosions and bomb threats at cinemas that caused no injuries. Bombs exploded behind a theater in the black township of Alexandra before the movie began, and in a Durban movie house during an afternoon showing. After a gasoline bomb interrupted the film in a mixed-race Colored township in Port Elizabeth, the fire was extinguished and the projector turned back on.

Stoffel van der Merwe, the minister of information, said the government seized the film because it was a piece of “crude propaganda” that portrayed security forces “in such a negative light that their public image would be seriously undermined,” and “could even lead to violence.” He cited Friday’s bombs as evidence of the film’s potential for violence.

Van der Merwe added that the government had overruled its own censors’ decision because the censor board had acted “as if times were normal and times are unfortunately not normal in South Africa.” He said the police were in a better position to gauge “what the implications of the film would be on the streets.”

Action Draws Criticism

The government’s action was sharply criticized by, among others, the South African Council of Churches, which accused the white minority-led government of trying to hide “its shameful history from its people (without) learning from that history that peace and justice must in the end triumph.”

More than 1,000 people saw the film before it was seized, some in packed theaters. Many more had purchased advance tickets for later shows, and theaters in black townships and white suburbs alike reported their evening shows were sold out.

“I’m grossly disappointed” with the banning, said Ben Bekker, manager of the Kine Entertainment Center in Johannesburg. “We will have more problems on our hands now that they have banned it.”

Many South Africans reacted emotionally to the film.

‘Heartbreaking’ Film

Gladys Tladi, a black teen-ager from Soweto, emerged from a Johannesburg theater in tears after the show. “Heartbreaking, very hurting,” she said. “South Africans must see it.”

“I’m pretty shocked by the whole thing,” said Elena Stratodakis, a white university student in Johannesburg. “It was nice to see the other side of the story. I’m pretty apathetic myself. I’ve never even been to a (black) township.”

At some showings, blacks left the theater singing the unofficial national anthem of the anti-apartheid movement, “God Bless Africa,” which is being sung on screen as the film ends.

“I didn’t come out smiling, but I came out pretty worried,” said Cathy Alexander, a white 19-year-old who saw the film in Pietermaritzburg, a small city surrounded by townships racked for more than a year by bloody fighting between rival black groups.

Skipped Classes for Film

“I wanted everyone to know there are people like Donald Woods still in this country,” she added. Alexander and some of her friends skipped college classes Friday morning to see the film, thinking it might later be banned.

Woods, portrayed by actor Kevin Kline, wrote the books on which the movie is based. Before he met Biko, he supported cautious reforms, as many white liberals here do. The black leader transformed Woods into a strong supporter of more radical changes in the country.

In London, where Woods now lives in exile, the journalist charged the South African government tried and failed to discredit “Cry Freedom” because it was true, Reuters news service reported.

“It shows that they’re scared of the truth. They dare not let South Africans see a true story. They had a problem discrediting it because it’s a true story,” Woods told British television.

Biko, portrayed by actor Denzel Washington, advocated black self-sufficiency, identity and pride. He used to say, “Black man, you are on your own.” As founder of the black consciousness movement, he believed that whites can help remove apartheid, but that blacks should hold all the leadership positions.

Film Criticized

The film has been criticized by some black leaders for highlighting Woods, his political awakening and his family’s escape from South Africa, rather than focusing on Biko and his ideas. Some white South Africans, though, found the cinematic character of Biko a one-dimensional nice guy, saying it lacked any of the rage and anger they remember in the man.

“I never believed they would show it,” Attenborough told the Associated Press in London. “The overall reason for making the film was to tell people the truth about apartheid, and about how it struck both black and white South Africans.”

30 Copies Seized

In Los Angeles, MCA, the parent company of Universal Pictures, which produced “Cry Freedom,” said 30 copies of the film had been confiscated in South Africa.

“We applaud the courage of the theater owners who played this film despite the threats of the government to harass and arrest them,” Tom Pollock, chairman of the MCA Motion Picture Group, said. “We at Universal are committed to fighting the censorship of motion pictures, the banning and destruction of motion pictures, wherever it occurs.

“Those who would ban or destroy films anywhere in the world--whether in South Africa or the United States--do themselves and everyone a great injustice,” Pollock said.

The South African reaction to “Cry Freedom” could prompt some companies in the U.S. film industry to renew calls for a boycott of the country. In the past, the Motion Picture Assn. of America, a trade group representing film studios, has opposed such a boycott.

Pollock said Universal would ask the Motion Picture Assn. to look into the South African action against “Cry Freedom.” He said he did not know whether Universal would stop distributing its films there as a result of the seizures.

Times staff writer Nina J. Easton, in Los Angeles, contributed to this story.