Khalo Matabane, whose rivetting Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon won the Best South African Feature Film award at DIFF last year, locates his next project in Soweto circa 1976.
Fistos, an intelligent but awkward teenager, meets Mangi the girl of his dreams. But Mangi is involved with Modise, an articulate student leader. Fistos has to both stave off the local bullies and fi gure out how to win Mangi in the midst of a revolution.
One of the most vibrant and articulate filmmaking voices in South Africa has made a work about innocence and naivety set against the harsh realities facing South Africa in the 70s.
A coming of age tale, this is also a story about the way that history and politics serve to mould individual identity. The film seeks to examine the ways in which personal identities and stories coincide and relate to broader, political events. Complex, charming and intelligent this is a film with universal appeal.