Modisane’s paper explores one of the icons of South African cinema, Come Back, Africa (1959), by American independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin, made in collaboration with Sophiatown intellectuals Lewis Nkosi, Bloke Modisane, and Can Themba. The film was produced surreptitiously, during the Apartheid days of repression, and mostly circulated abroad. Critical to its power of dialogue and representation of conditions of black South Africans was the partnership internal to its creation, which crossed the “color line” and gave cinematic content perspicuity, liveliness, forthright dialogue, and sense of place. The film, a slice of black urban life in 1950s Sophiatown and greater Johannesburg, is among the few produced at a moment of censorship and lack of resources, which is crucial to its becoming an icon of the times and resonating with civil rights in America. Modisane’s paper documents the public reception of this film in America and elsewhere, paying particular attention to its circumstances of non-circulation or erratic circulation. This paper is one chapter of the book Modisane has completed while a University of Michigan Presidential Scholar, on leave from a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Cape Town.