ABSTRACT
The film Tsotsi, by director Gavin Hood, is set in Johannesburg and contrasts the modern central city with the slums of Alex and Kliptown. There was no need to build special sets for the film. The locations were as grimy as the director needed. Kliptown is the poorest part of Soweto, and was the site of the 1955 Freedom Charter. Thousands of people, in a remarkable piece of underground organisation, made their way across South Africa to the Congress of the People and signed a document that established the goals of liberation. It was an immensely social democratic document, and the delegates assembled for photographs before the police waded in.
