TORONTO: South African director Zamo Mkhwanazi has no interest in giving a history lesson on apartheid when the audience catches her film “Laundry” at the Toronto International Film Festival - instead, she wants them to understand the impossible choices, limitations and the threats Black people faced under a brutal regime.
Set in 1968, Mkhwanazi’s debut feature film follows the story of a Black family’s struggle between dreams, duty and loyalty as they navigate life in apartheid South Africa while running a laundry business in a whites-only neighborhood.
The movie revolves around the character of Khuthala Sithole, a rebellious young man who dreams of traveling the world as a musician alongside a local singer, who also happens to be his father’s mistress.
“The story is really about the tension between the coming of age … of a young musician and living in a world where he’s not really allowed to explore his dreams,” Mkhwanazi told Reuters ahead of the film’s premiere on Friday.
But Mkhwanazi does not want the audience to get lost in the specifics of how the apartheid system worked.
“For me, what was important is for the audience to understand the constant limitations, the constant threats that people have to navigate their lives and their dreams and their very basic humanity around,” Mkhwanazi said.
Black people in South Africa endured discrimination for centuries under colonialism and apartheid before the country became a multi-party democracy in 1994 under liberation hero Nelson Mandela.
Despite introducing various laws aimed at redressing the injustices of the past, successive governments have failed to lift South Africa’s status as one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has lambasted South African policies, and has repeatedly claimed - without giving evidence - that its government discriminates against whites, which South Africa strongly denies.
Mkhwanazi acknowledges that South Africa is still a work in progress.
“I’ve been working on this film for about 10 years. But it feels like there couldn’t be a more important moment for it to come out,” Mkhwanazi said.
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