The Incredible Journey of Freddy Reddy

[摘要] This is an historical documentary about an individual’s remarkable journey, one whichstarts in Durban in 1957 and ends with the protagonist’s arrival in London later the sameyear before he would subsequently move to Oslo in 1961. The documentary is intendedprimarily for a South African television audience. As such, it is a history to beapprehended visually rather than in writing, and to a large and heterogeneous, thoughprimarily South African audience.The documentary is actually about two journeys: the physical overland African passageto Europe with its various episodes, and the journey of an ambitious young adult from ahumble and disadvantaged background with only a primary school education. Itculminates with him gaining acceptance for study of medicine at a Norwegian university,where he would eventually qualify as a doctor and later as a psychiatrist. Though setagainst the backdrop of the emerging political opposition to apartheid, the documentary isa somewhat depoliticised personal history – the biographical narrative of an old man whoaccomplished something in his youth which altered his whole life.It is not primarily a political history, nor is it a narrative about the experience of exile.The documentary attempts to locate a historical and spatial context from where theprotagonist emerged, but does not attempt to portray the history of South African Indiansas a racial or cultural group, per se.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand