7 up : South Africa / Granada Television ; producer, David Wason ; director, Angus Gibson.

"As you know," says Bonita, "whites are people too." The 7-year-old daughter of a Zulu chief in rural Natal, she beguiles the camera with quiet authority: "You see, there is only one difference between us. They speak English and we speak Zulu." Bonita is one of 19 children featured in this South African version of the famed British documentary 7 Up, in which young participants speak from their hearts about the society around them. Luyanda and Andiswa live in a hostel for migrant workers near Capetown. Lunga attends a "mixed" school in Durban and lionizes Nelson Mandela. With only a squatter camp in Soweto to call home, Thembasile and her grandmother subsist without electricity or running water. And what of the white children in the group? Their attitudes are often a far cry from Bonita's, such as when Pat and Robbie only want "nice" black classmates, or when Willem announces he will beat up any black student who tries to attend his school."--Films for the Humanities & Sciences website.