Milisuthando Bongela was born in 1985 in Transkei, the first »homeland« set up for Black South Africans, which was declared independent from South Africa in 1976. She grew up in the midst of apartheid, but remained unaware of its existence. Although promoted as an independent state, Transkei was in reality a manifestation of systematic racist segregation. The republic was dissolved in 1994 after the fall of the apartheid regime. Blending archive material from private collections and state sources – including records from the former Ministry of Information – with conversations with relatives and friends, Milisuthando interweaves Bongela’s personal story with the broader history of her country, creating a deeply personal cinematic essay.
»The thing I set out to do was find myself in history as a Black person. How does history, through this medium of the camera, represent me? Is it a true representation of who I am as an African? We came to realise that it’s not. And if I can’t rely on history; if I want to use this archive I’m seeing, but it does not represent me fairly as a Black person or tell me who I am, we have to find a way to subvert it. And that led to a more associative editing style, almost telling new stories with the archive that we found. I want to call it a genre of Bantu cinema, which is fundamentally connected to African modalities of storytelling. It’s much more circular, concentric. The occult, the esoteric is all mixed in. The line between reality and fiction is thin.« (Milisuthando Bongela)

Content notes

In cooperation with the Afrika Film Festival Köln

Trailer

Milisuthando Bongela about Milisuthando:
Interview: Africa Film Festival Köln