An interview with the producer of “Zulu Dawn”. This epic cinema production about the Battle of Isandlwana is about the defeat of British forces by an overwhelming force of 25 thousand Zulu warriors in 1879. As Pete Myers, the producer of the Africa magazine programme “Afroscene” explains in the introduction, it was not easy to mobilise such a large army of cheap extras, unless you went to Africa, namely South Africa.
“Zulu Dawn”, filmed in Zululand in Natal Province, was surrounded by scandal when it emerged that the black extras were being poorly paid and lived in unsanitary and cramped conditions in comparison with their white counterparts on the film set. More details in this interview with the film’s producer Nate Kohn made in London by Ann Bolsover for Radio Netherlands “Afroscene”.
Producer: Pete Myers
Broadcast May 14, 1979