The film had a profound effect on African cinema, and remains historically and cultural importance as a document preserving the heritage of the townships in South Africa in the 1950s.

Like Rogosin's feature debut On the Bowery, Come Back, Africa is a scripted film based on fictional narrative, in which actors play invented roles.

Both used amateur actors, "street people" playing their own roles in search of truth or to unveil some hidden mystery beyond crude reality: Rogosin, contrary to Flaherty, sustained by strong ideological beliefs, Rouch, beyond Flaherty, inspired by surrealism, which he believed to be a useful means to reveal the truth of cinema'’ (the cinéma-vérité) and also an important tool to be used by an ethnographer for scientific research.

He eventually settles in one of the squalid apartheid-era townships, only to find himself confronted with a barrage of South Africa's infamous pass laws restricting his every move.

Zachariah subsequently drifts through a succession of jobs - household servant, garage attendant, waiter, and public labourer – ridiculed, insulted, and ostracised by unfeeling and hostile Afrikaner superintendents.

Upon his release from detention, Zachariah discovers that Vinah has been murdered by Marumu, an infamous Sophiatown hoodlum, after resisting his unwanted sexual advances.

The portrayal of Zachariah's overwhelming feelings of torment, helplessness, and frustration is intended to capture the resentment of South Africa's indigenous population.

Denied basic civil rights, many must weave a treacherous path of survival through the myriad of legal and unofficial racial codes, while their families disintegrate on the townships' violent streets.

Rogosin financed and backed Bloke Modisane's escape from South Africa and his transition period in London, where he wrote his book Blame me on History.

He secretly met Myrtle and Marty Berman (organizers in the anti-apartheid movement) who introduced him to the groups fighting against apartheid and to Bloke Modisane, a writer and journalist working for Drum magazine.

Rogosin's crew worked in secret, disguised as a commercial film unit making a musical, and in constant fear of confiscation and deportation.