''De Voortrekkers'' is a 1916 silent film recognized as the first

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

in South Africa's motion-picture history and also that nation's oldest surviving

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

. Produced by African Film Productions and directed by Harold M. Shaw, it portrays the

Boers Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...

' "

Great Trek The Great Trek (, ) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial adminis ...

" of the 1830s, concluding with a hegemonic recreation of the

Battle of Blood River The Battle of Blood River or Voortrekker-Zulu War (16 December 1838) was fought on the bank of the Blood River, Ncome River, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa between 464 Voortrekkers ("Pioneers"), led by Andries Pretorius, and an es ...

that occurred on 16 December 1838, when a few hundred armed

Afrikaners Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch people, Dutch Settler colonialism, settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in Free Burghers in the Dutch Cape Colony, 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. '' ...

defeated several thousand

Zulus Zulu people (; ) are a native people of Southern Africa of the Nguni. The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa, living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. They originated from Nguni communities who took p ...

. Descendants of the Dutch-speaking ''voortrekkers'' or "pioneers" who participated in the Great Trek revered the film and used it to commemorate the event, which forms part of a highly contentious period in South Africa's history. Afrikaners presented it in school classrooms for decades and screened it annually at social events marking the battle's anniversary. ''De Voortrekkers'' premiered in South Africa at

Krugersdorp Krugersdorp (Afrikaans for ''Kruger's Town'') is a mining city in the West Rand, Gauteng Province, South Africa founded in 1887 by Marthinus Pretorius and Abner Cohen. Following the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, a need arose for a ...

on 14 December 1916, just two days before the battle's 78th anniversary. It was later distributed in an abbreviated form to cinemas in England, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere outside Africa under the title ''Winning a Continent''.

Intertitle In films and videos, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (hence, ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred ...

s used in the original film and in later releases employ a split-screen format that presents texts in both English and Afrikaans."De Voortrekkers (1916) with new orchestral score"
19:52 segment of film with added music, uploaded by Chris Jeffrey on 23 February 2017 onto

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

(San Bruno, California, United States). Retrieved 12 August 2021.

References

External links

*
Short video from British Pathé (1917)
Crowds outside London West End cinema showing ''Winning a Continent'', the movie's title outside Africa 1916 films South African drama films 1916 drama films Films set in the 1830s Films set in South Africa 1910s South African films {{SouthAfrica-film-stub