Because of South Africa's restrictive laws governing what could be photographed, the film had to be shot clandestinely and smuggled out of the country, where it was edited and released in England.
While white people enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world, the lives of black people were carefully circumscribed so that they enjoyed few rights with no legal recourse.
[2] When the film was released, it resulted in international condemnation of the Apartheid government's brutal resettlement policy, which had not been widely known outside of South Africa prior to that point.
[3] The closing scene of the film was photographed in a black children's cemetery in the town Dimbaza.
Because of the high mortality rate, the film shows graves that have already been dug in anticipation of the newly deceased.