Documentaries in the spotlight
In the world of cinema, Botswana exists mainly through documentary films. In this genre, one of the most important contributors to the spotlight on Botswana is South African director Dereck Joubert. With the help of his wife Beverly, Joubert makes numerous documentaries for the National Geographic Society. In this context, the director (and cameraman) helps to make Botswana known to the rest of the world, giving us, for example, magnificent images of the Savuti Desert and the Okavango River. Some of their best-known works include The Last Lions (2011), Soul of the Elephant (2015) as well as their most recent feature film, Okavango: River of Dreams, released in 2019. A year earlier, National Geographic produced another documentary about the river, In the Heart of the Okavango, directed by Neil Gelinas. For four months, several explorers travel through Namibia, Angola and of course Botswana, the three countries crossed by this river (the third longest waterway in southern Africa), and try with passion to save the river system that feeds the Okavango endangered, like many others, by human activity. Among the documentaries filmed in Botswana are Sauvage et beau (1984) by Frédéric Rossif, Un jour sur terre (2007) by Alastair Fothergill, African Safari 3D (2013) by Ben Stassen, as well as the documentary series Botswana : le berceau sauvage, offering magnificent views of the Kalahari Basin, to be broadcast on France 5 in 2020
Fictions
In terms of fiction, there are only a few works set in Botswana. One of the best known is the 1980s comedy The Gods Are Over Your Head. This Botswana and South African feature film directed by Jamie Uys tells the story of a Kalahari desert tribe whose peaceful life, cut off from the outside world, is disrupted by the arrival of a bottle of Coca-Cola that falls from the sky. The work became cult over the years and has a sequel filmed in 1989: Les dieux sont tombés sur la tête 2. In 1991, Crazy Safari directed by Hong Kong's Billy Chan is an unofficial sequel to the first two volumes. In 2000, the Disney company produced the docufiction Whispers: An Elephant's Tale, following an elephant whose herd is attacked by hunters. Shot entirely in Botswana, this family film has the particularity of having recruited 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 fictional 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 highly controversial romance of Botswana's first president, Seretse Khama, and Englishwoman Ruth Williams. In 1990, the story of President Khama and his wife was the subject of a documentary film directed by Mike Dutfield, A Marriage of Inconvenience. Finally, let's not forget that on the small screen, it is the series The No. 1 Lady Detective Agency (created by Richard Curtis and Anthony Minghella) that puts Botswana in the spotlight between 2009 and 2011 since the entire series is shot in the country
