8/10
Behind the Scenes of a Protest Song
21 April 2024
This doco (also known as 'The Making of Sun City), provides a behind the scenes look at the creation of the 1985 protest song 'Sun City', and its accompanying music video. It's an extraordinary story of E-Street Band guitarist, Steven Van Zandt, gathering a huge and diverse group of musicians (including Lou Reed, Miles Davis, Pat Benatar, Bonnie Raitt, Joey Ramone and many more), to create the group 'Artists United Against Apartheid', with the explicit goal of boycotting 'Sun City' the largest resort/casino in South Africa.

The film really captures the passion of the artists, while also providing some confronting context of the racism and brutality of Apartheid South Africa. Unfortunately, this film was largely blocked from screening/distribution, due to its uncompromising approach which isn't afraid to point fingers beyond South Africa (including criticism of racism in the United States).

An inspiring documentary, which shows people of privilege doing something tangible to support human rights. As relevant now as ever, well worth seeing.
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