Lionel Ngakane, a renowned South African filmmaker and actor, was born on July 17, 1928, in Pretoria, South Africa. His family moved to the Sophiatown neighborhood of Johannesburg in 1936, where his father set up a hostel with Alan Paton, author of the novel Cry, The Beloved Country.
Ngakane was educated at Fort Hare University College and the University of Witwatersrand, and he worked on Drum and Zonk magazines from 1948 to 1950. He began his career in film as an assistant director and actor in the film version of Cry, the Beloved Country (1951),directed by Zoltan Korda.
In 1950, Ngakane went into exile in the United Kingdom, where he continued his career as an actor and filmmaker. He appeared in films, including The Mark of the Hawk in 1957, alongside Eartha Kitt, and Quatermass and the Pit (1958) on television. He also worked on the spy series Danger Man (Deadline, 1962) with Patrick McGoohan.
As a filmmaker, Ngakane is best remembered for his short film Jemima and Johnny (1965),inspired by the 1958 "race riots" in Notting Hill, London. The film won awards at the Venice and Rimini film festivals. He also directed documentaries on apartheid and African development.
Ngakane was a founding member of the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) and Fespaco, the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou. He was also the honorary president of FEPACI, which he originated in 1967 as a lobbying group for the support of African filmmakers.
After the end of apartheid in 1994, Ngakane returned to South Africa, where he continued to work as a filmmaker and advocate for African development. He died on November 26, 2003, at the age of 75, in Rustenburg, South Africa.
