Welcome to Mitchell’s Plain : Filming a ‘Model Township’ during Apartheid

Under the apartheid regime, South Africa’s Mitchell’s Plain, situated close to Cape Town, was devised as a “model township.” A cutting-edge urban planning scheme would provide middle-class Coloured people—evacuated from their homes by racialised rehousing schemes—with exemplary living conditions. This flagship for the regime was inaugurated with fanfare in 1976, and heavily publicised not just within South Africa but also in the international press. Ludmila, Ommundsen Pessoa, Welcome to Mitchell’s Plain : Filming a ‘Model Township’ during Apartheid. Nairobi, Johannesburg, Paris : Africae, 2023.