On location, Zululand
Subtitle: the making of Siliva the Zulu, 1927
By: by Peter Davis
Contributors: Villon Films
Publisher: Villon Films
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Vancouver, British Columbia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 60
Subjects: Zulu (African people); Drama; In motion pictures; South Africa
Description: Photos taken by the film crew of a silent film titled: "Siliva the Zulu." The Italian film crew went to South Africa intending to make a film about a white woman abducted by Zulus. When this was forbidden by white authorities, director Attilio Gatti decided instead to make a film about Zulu life. He designed a melodrama that had little to do with Zulu culture, but which contained the first authentic scenes of Zulu life to be recorded at that time. The crew were able to live with and work on close terms with the Zulus, and created the first full-length fiction film with an all-African cast to be made in South Africa (and possibly in all of Africa). Coming as it did at the moment of impact of talkies, the film received minimal distribution in Italy, having no more than a half-dozen screenings, after which it disappeared.
Notes: A self-published a book of still photographs depicting the first use of Zulus as primary characters in a silent film.

Title from cover.

Accompanying CD-ROM includes book in pdf format.