AfroFutures: Black Women and Cinematic Storytelling
An invitation into a poetic, memory-driven exploration of love, intimacy, race, and belonging from a woman who grew up during apartheid but didn't know it was happening until it was over.
Filmmaker Milisuthando Bongela grew up in the Transkei, an 18-year-long pro-apartheid, Black separatist territory that dissolved with Nelson Mandela’s liberation and presidency. In Milisuthando, she works across political, personal, and spiritual dimensions to explore ancestry, power, and the construction of race and racism in the context of the South African apartheid regime, which Bongela was unaware she was growing up inside of until it was over. [128 min; documentary; English and Xhosa with English subtitles]
Presented in partnership with the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, The Media School, The Center for Documentary Research and Practice, and the Black Film Center & Archive, and generously supported by the Black Philanthropy Circle and the Women's Philanthropy Leadership Council.
"Combining a treasure trove of archive footage, home movies and personal photographs to tell the history of the Transkei, Milisuthando is also a clear love letter to the filmmaker’s own family." — Marina Ashioti, Little White Lies
"Models how to confront history and complicated legacies." — Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter
"The formal experimentation of the film is entrancing and dreamlike, feeling out the borders that our communities build for us and complicating narratives about race and oppression in modernity." — Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
Any film screened at IU Cinema may contain content that viewers find sensitive or upsetting. Visit our Audience Advisories page to learn more.
