Documentaries in the spotlight
In the world of the seventh art, Botswana exists mainly through documentary works. Within this genre, one of those who has made the greatest contribution to bringing Botswana to light is South African director Dereck Joubert. With the help of his wife Beverly, Joubert has made numerous documentaries for the National Geographic Society. In this capacity, the director (and cameraman) helps to bring Botswana to the attention of the rest of the world, providing us, for example, with magnificent images of the Savuti Desert and the Okavango River. Their best-known works include The Last Lions (2011), Soul of the Elephant (2015) and their most recent feature, Okavango: the River of Dreams, released in 2019. A year earlier, National Geographic produced another documentary on the river, Au cœur de l'Okavango, directed by Neil Gelinas. For four months, several explorers travelled through Namibia, Angola and, of course, Botswana, the three countries crossed by this river (the third longest in southern Africa), and passionately attempted to save the river system that feeds the Okavango, endangered, like many others, by human activity. Documentary films shot in Botswana include Frédéric Rossif's Sauvage et beau (1984), Alastair Fothergill's Un jour sur terre (2007), Ben Stassen's African Safari 3D (2013), and the documentary series Botswana : le berceau sauvage, featuring magnificent views of the Kalahari Basin, broadcast on France 5 in 2020.
Fictions
As far as fiction is concerned, there are only a few works set in Botswana. One of the best known is undoubtedly the 1980s comedy The Gods Are Over Their Head. Directed by Jamie Uys, this Botswana-South African feature tells the story of a Kalahari desert tribe whose peaceful life, cut off from contact with the outside world, is disrupted when a bottle of Coca-Cola falls from the sky. The film, which has acquired a cult following over the years, was followed by a sequel in 1989: Les dieux sont tombés sur la tête 2. In 1991, Crazy Safari, directed by Hong Kong's Billy Chan, was an unofficial sequel to the first two volumes. In 2000, the Disney Company produced the docu-drama Whispers: An Elephant's Tale, following an elephant whose herd is attacked by hunters. Filmed entirely in Botswana, this family drama has the particularity of recruiting actors to dub the animals. Among them is the famous Angela Bassett. In 2016, the story of Seretse Khama is at the heart of the drama A United Kingdom. This biographical work, directed by Amma Asante, is adapted from the novel Colour Bar by Susan Williams and tells the story of the controversial romance between Botswana's first president, Seretse Khama, and Englishwoman Ruth Williams. In 1990, the story of President Khama and his wife was already the subject of a documentary directed by Mike Dutfield, A Marriage of Inconvenience. Finally, let's not forget that on the small screen, it's the series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (created by Richard Curtis and Anthony Minghella) that puts Botswana in the spotlight between 2009 and 2011, as the entire series is filmed in the country.
