Drum (2004 film)
| Drum | |
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DVD release cover
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| Directed by | Zola Maseko |
| Produced by | Dumisani Dlamini |
| Written by | Jason Filardi |
| Starring |
Taye Diggs Gabriel Mann Jason Flemyng Zola |
| Music by |
Terence Blanchard Cédric Gradus Samson |
| Cinematography | Lisa Rinzler |
| Edited by | Troy Takaki |
| Distributed by | Armada Pictures International |
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Release date
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Running time
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94 minutes |
| Country | United States South Africa |
| Language | English Afrikaans German |
Drum is a 2004 film based on the life of South African investigative journalist Henry Nxumalo, who worked for Drum magazine, called "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa". It was director Zola Maseko's first film and deals with the issues of apartheid and the forced removal of residents from Sophiatown. The film was originally to be a six-part television series called Sophiatown Short Stories, but Maseko could not get the funding. The lead roles of Henry Nxumalo and Drum main photographer Jürgen Schadeberg were played by American actors Taye Diggs and Gabriel Mann, while most of the rest of the cast were South African actors.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2004, and did the rounds of international film festivals before going on general release in South Africa in July 2006. It was released in Europe, but failed to get a distributor for the USA where it went straight to DVD.
The film was generally well received critically. Most of the negative reviews were based on the quality of Maseko's directing and Jason Filardi's screenwriting. It was awarded Best South African Film at the Durban International Film Festival, and director Maseko gained the top prize at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO).
The story is based on real events and real people and is set in the mid-1950s freehold township of Sophiatown, Johannesburg— one of the few areas in South Africa where blacks could own property and drink alcoholic beverages. Drum begins with the central character, sportswriter Henry Nxumalo, reporting on a boxing match with Nelson Mandela. Nxumalo leaves his wife Florence at home while going out into his community's night life and has an affair with a female singer. He works for Drum magazine, which was "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa." The magazine was financed by whites and had a multiracial staff; it was popular among the black community. Drum's British editor, Jim Bailey (Jason Flemyng), asks Nxumalo to write on the township crime scene, and Nxumalo, while at first unwilling, finally agrees. While on the job, he encounters Slim (Zola), a gang leader, that he had previously met in illegal township drinking places, and witnesses him kill a man in Sophiatown.
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