Directed by Milisuthando Bongela • 2023 • South Africa, Colombia

Filmmaker, writer, and poet Milisuthando Bongela’s youth in South Africa was untouched by the horrors of apartheid—at least that’s how it seemed. The Transkei, an unrecognized Black independent region established by the regime, created the illusion for Black South Africans that separate could be equal. And paradoxically for Bongela, life in the Transkei proved as idyllic as the propaganda claimed. Until it was over. The fall of apartheid ushered in a new life, one that included, for the first time, whiteness. MILISUTHANDO is a deeply intimate portrait of past, present, and future South Africa, blending poetry, film, and photography into a striking cinematic essay. Bongela explores love, friendship, and belonging in a South Africa stratified by racism—proving that only if we understand its tentacles can we begin to extricate ourselves from its clutches.