AllMovie

In 1927, Italian explorer and filmmaker Attilio Gatti, inspired by Robert Flaherty's groundbreaking documentary Nanook of the North, traveled to Africa with anthropologist Lidio Cipriani to make a movie that would depict the realities of life among the Zulu natives and blend them with a scripted story. The result was Siliva the Zulu, a story of a romantic rivalry in a primitive African village. Along with the love story wedged into Gatti's footage, Siliva the Zulu also includes historically invaluable scenes of daily life among the Zulu people, including healing rituals, dancing, and magical ceremonies. While Gatti originally intended to feature European actors as well as the Zulu natives, African immigration officers prevented this, and as a result the film was produced with a fully African cast. Siliva the Zulu was long thought to have been lost, but a print was discovered in the 21st century and it played a number of international film festivals.