Drum 2004

The story is based on real events and real people, and is set in the mid-1950s, in Sophiatown, a rare freehold township in Johannesburg where Black residents could own property and drink alcohol. It follows Henry Nxumalo, a sportswriter for Drum magazine—the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa.

Drum was financed by white investors and housed a multiracial staff, earning widespread popularity within the community. Henry Nxumalo balances his work with personal life, leaving his wife, Florence Nxumalo, at home as he ventures into the township’s nightlife and begins a romantic involvement with a female singer.

The magazine’s British editor, Jim Bailey, challenges him to cover the township crime scene, and after initial reluctance, Nxumalo agrees to dig deeper than entertainment pieces. On assignment, he encounters a gang leader he had crossed paths with in illegal drinking spots and witnesses a lethal confrontation in Sophiatown.

At first, Nxumalo keeps politics at a distance, but encouragement from his wife and from Nelson Mandela nudges him toward stories with real social impact. When a young man vanishes at a Boer farm and is feared enslaved, Nxumalo goes undercover, taking a laborer’s job where he is treated like a slave and nearly killed.

His investigative pieces—published to wide attention—make him a public figure, and his work expands to prison reporting, reinforcing his self-appointed role as a muckraker. With the support of the German photographer Jürgen Schadeberg, he pushes into riskier territory, seeking truths that challenge the status quo.

Across these efforts, Nxumalo confronts intensifying racism and the creeping reach of apartheid in his hometown, consistently pursuing stories that could aid his community’s well-being. Yet government pressure grows, and plans to evict residents and destroy Sophiatown loom large. The film concludes with Nxumalo stabbed to death, the assailant never identified, leaving a legacy of courageous journalism in a fractured city.