Memory is a powerful tool. It is never set - like a river, it meanders and changes. Information and perspective shape what was and what is remembered, and while there are many lessons to be learned in Milisuthando Bongela’s self-titled documentary, one line in particular has stayed with me throughout. In a hushed voice, the director says, ‘I have to be very careful about how I remember my memories. How I recall the ingredients of my life. I have to ask dangerous questions.’
Memory is also fickle and dangerous, it requires intentionality to root it to the truth. And with Milisuthando, we begin a journey where Bongela looks inward to interrogate the chasm between herself, as someone who was isolated from the violence of apartheid, and those who were marked by its daily abrasion. We look at the harrowing history of a country and a young girl’s story of being and becoming—two opposing factors that stand as one of many other juxtapositions the film highlights.
In confronting her upbringing and upbringing, the film becomes a personal and archival kind of exhumation where our director returns to the one place she knows she will find some answers: home.
Milisuthando Bongela was born in a place that no longer exists. The Republic of Transkei was a short-lived, internationally unrecognised state created by the apartheid government as a homeland for the Xhosa-speaking population. While the Transkei’s independence was nominal in nature, it highlighted the lengths those who controlled the country would go to to sell segregation. In an archival footage from newsreels, a white man is heard commending the beauty that the white and Black population have and goes into great detail to explain how they need to be preserved by keeping them separate. It is this segregationist ideal that saw the likes of Milisuthando Bongela and those who grew up in the Transkei only discovering the depths of the racial realities outside of this colonial experiment after the fact. For Bongela, this was only after her family moved to a mixed neighbourhood in the 90s.
For two hours, Milisuthando takes us through the three decades of the writer-director’s life, digging through family footage and photographs, archival footage from newsreels and bulletins and old newspaper inserts. The vignette of these artifacts of old - greying, sepia-toned, and sometimes bright photographs displaying beloved family events and mementos - submits the documentary as both a historical account and a defiant act of remembering, of retrieving parts of the past to make sense of the present. Memory returns as a meditation and a museum of reckoning and healing. It is personal narrative as a tool of archiving, of memory as resistance. A confrontational, provocative and sad personal essay that questions Bongela’s voice in the story of apartheid - an event she did not experience but was inadvertently a part of it.
The lived experiences of her family is one of many strokes in this artwork that depicts post-apartheid identity. It gives history a new taste, a new feeling. One of inherited resistance and renewal, ceasing to be something she can seek in research. It renders the story immediate and familiar. In that sense, she reaches into this meandering river of memory, both her own and her loved ones’, of acquaintances and colleagues she speaks with, and she asks the questions a person in her position would rather shy away from. In these conversations, accountability and complicity become slippery terrain. They attempt, sometimes faltering, to articulate the distance between inherited guilt and learned fragility, between the desire to understand and the fear of being implicated.
‘Even against a backdrop of utter madness, the stubborn details of basic human life find a way to exist and exist well. To become nostalgia. Yearning. Memory.’
Milisuthando, as an essay-esque documentary, is a beautyful and gnawing addition into the zeitgeist of films that prod at our country’s reality with apartheid and the legacy it’s left. It is chaotic and messy, and exists deliberately that way. Defies and destroys forms in a way that weirdly works. The synergy between the technical and the narrative is an experience to behold: Milisuthando Bongela’s cinematography with the handheld footage during the candid interviews with her family, her engaging and often haunting poetic narration root the film into a perfectly paced narrative, and the way in which Hankyeol Lee manages to cut it all together with flawless editing that gives both the silence and the sound design their time to shine.
Possessing the kind of intimacy and urgency found in the literary works of Koleka Putuma and Sisonke Msimang, Bongela’s debut documentary walks up to a country scorned and dares to touch the wound - to caress, confront and comfort.
Loic Niyonkuru's short film, Before 16, is a lamentation on inherited trauma.
Described by the director as a ‘story of healing, understanding, for the timeless bond between mother and daughter, after a life-altering experience has tested their bond’, the film tells the story of Elizabeth—who became a mother at the young age of 16 after being sexually assaulted—and her daughter as they navigate the precarious landscapes of existing together while coming to terms with this shared trauma.
‘I used to see her as an enemy…’ is a line that resonates throughout the strikingly arresting eleven minutes of Loic Niyonkuru’s documentary short film, Before 16. It comes from his subject, Elizabeth, who has to reckon with the pangs of the past if she is to forge a future with her daughter.
The film opens with images of Elizabeth’s daughter holding her mother’s hand. This quiet fragility in their grip is heightened only by the young girl’s voice as she narrates the beginning of her life story. The tone is haunting, her voice breathy and almost hesitant in her delivery as she relays the harshness of not just her upbringing, but the relationship she has with her mother. Niyonkuru’s short film is shot entirely in greyscale, a cinematic choice that adds to the sombre tone of the film and the subjects’ existence in this world.
In employing alternating perspectives to give Elizabeth and her daughter space for the poignant dialogue that has eluded them, both in real-time and across time and memory, the film arrests us while taking us on a journey of reckoning. As the audience is drawn into their defining moments and the physical distance between them, we witness a glimpse into Elizabeth’s quiet grief: the loss of her youth through trauma, and the silent moment when she sees herself in her daughter. A girl on the cusp of womanhood, full of promise, yet walking a path Elizabeth knows too well, one marked by both hope and a looming threat. We also get to experience the weight of being a child of rape, of finding out about it elsewhere instead of one’s mother, and the mental health implications this placed upon her growing up.
While the minimal lighting, the lack of colour, and the shots that were selected to frame this story, provide a sense of entrapment—the ever-present cluster of shanties and shacks, the pathways between them, the train tracks and tunnels, and the doorway being the only source of light—Niyonkuru, who also served as cinematographer, doesn’t shy away from allowing Elizabeth and her daughter’s voices to show us that through their being together and pushing through, there will be a sense of healing for them. Together, they will find a way to move past the gruesome violations that have landed them in that position.
The opening scene is one of Elizabeth and her daughter, hands clasped together, standing over a blurred silhouette. The film ends just as it began—with the two women in an embrace. But this time, the location is made clear: they stand on a precipice, towering over their circumstances and the versions of themselves they were when they first began to shed the weight of their shared trauma. Elizabeth speaks in the background, professing her love to her daughter, an assurance that as long as they are together, they will overcome. There will be healing.
I first saw the short film from Burundi when it was selected for the 27th edition of the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival, which took place earlier this year. Adding to the array of brilliant and thought-provoking films on the slate, Before 16 echoes the sentiments that were promised by the festival of capturing the beauty and chaos of real life, while highlighting the frightening reality of now.
It will be shown again in South Africa at the Africa Rising International Film Festival as part of the film package 'Bound and Becoming', taking place in Johannesburg on November 29th.
Beautifully shot and tender in its portrayal of a young woman forced into motherhood before her time, and the subsequent mistakes she makes along the way, Niyonkuru’s documentary short film is a welcome addition to the many stories that dare to breach the conversation of sexual violence and the shifting relationships between mothers and their daughters. It provides a much-needed spotlight into a rite of passage rarely spoken about: inherited trauma.
Catch the film at the Africa Rising International Film Festival: https://ariff.co.za/
This review was originally published on the Talent Press website as part of the Talent Press programme, an initiative of Talents Durban in collaboration with the Durban FilmMart Institute and FIPRESCI.
Unpacking the dance of juxtapositions and metaphysics portrayed in Sanaa el Alaoui's Aicha.
Sanaa el Alaoui’s film opens with the most basic example of juxtapositions: life and death. A human child is born at the exact time a baby lamb dies. Something so simple, yet layered in such a manner that it reverberates throughout the narrative and disrupts the metaphysics of the entire story.
In Moroccan folklore, Aicha Kandicha is a goddess-like entity who is said to be both enchanting and fearsome in her manifestation and portrayal, often depicted as a gorgeous succubus adorned with alluring locs and a presence that bewitches. Her beauty acts as a weapon and a glamour concealing a deeper truth—below her waist, she is often shown to be part goat or came with hooves where her legs should be. In true succubus fashion, she is believed to entice men and drive them to madness or even death, serving as a cautionary tale for men throughout generations. This invocation of both beauty and beastliness, human and animalistic qualities, as well as the real and supernatural all underscore what one will come to understand of the film’s central motif: how two opposing factors can exist and inspire the other.
While it is only evident by the midpoint of the film due to its non-linear storytelling device, Sanaa El Alaoui’s short film depicts the life and death of a seventeen year-old girl, played by Manal Bennani. In Aicha, the girl is both alive and dead at the same time, echoing what she says to her mother in one scene: “Do you know what the secret is, mother? To live in the past, the present and the future, as if they were one thing.” This temporal displacement is reminiscent of a person’s experiences with trauma, how it disrupts their grasp on reality and leaves their perception of time fragmented.
The girl is dead and alive, and her ghostly presence hovers over the narrative, reshaping how the story is told, and how her mother (played by Hind Dater) recounts her actions on her journey to finding peace.
From the very first scene, the film utilises minimal light and grading to heighten the tone and emotions of the story, with Oskar Jan Krol’s cinematography working with them. The shots used leave nothing to chance and assumption—something fascinating when one looks at how the non-linear device disrupts order. The writing, cinematography and editing are all intentional in choreographing this dance of juxtapositions: warmer hues in the scenes where a mother bathes her daughter; and more colder, pale tones where the two women are bathing a corpse; and the ceremonial cacophony of dancing and singing whilst the energy of death sits in the room. Aicha becomes a ceremonial film, ritualistic in its portrayal of life and death, of existing and dying, and grief. And how it all gets blurred.
Produced by Piotr Kaczorowski, Aicha tackles the important themes of violence, abuse, and mental health in both the Moroccan and Arab-Muslim context. The culture of secrecy and ignorance that’s fostered by many religious communities often ostracises the children, with our protagonist donning self-harm scars that the mother notices and quickly moves away from. The irony of this scene playing right as the radio broadcaster in the background enquires about the sacrifice necessary to invoke Aicha Kandicha during the Gnawa isn’t lost on me. By using an emotionally-distant mother, entrenched in the culture that made her and a daughter trying to make sense of her position in the world as conduits for conversation, the conflicting aspects brought forward by the film are bridged by their relationship. The film asks the question of how the two opposing factors can meet in the middle to be made sense of as a whole.
Such a particular conversation results in the daughter’s fascination with Aicha Kandicha and the Gnawa ceremony, which the mother responds against. The Moroccan Gnawa is a deeply spiritual practice that blends music, dance and ritual healing practices. Rooted in the heritage of West African slaves brought to Morocco centuries ago, this all-night ceremony invokes spirits through music, dancing and chanting and can be used for both therapeutic and religious purposes, allowing participants to connect with the spiritual world and seek protection, healing or blessings.
It was also interesting to realise how the film blends elements of fiction and documentary within the narrative of the character—a young filmmaker/videographer documenting her space and experiences. We see the young daughter on her trip to the city, providing a change in scenery that gives nothing away as to the impending danger, if not for the cold hue grading reminiscent of the corpse scene. Death still occupies this lively scene, where we can see her from a bird’s eye view centered between a cemetery. Through reading up on the director, the documentary aspect of the film goes beyond that of the transitions of the girl’s viewpoint through the lens of her documentary camera footage. We find out that the scene with the Gnawa ceremony was real and factual, performed according to ritual where it is led by a master musician called a Maâlem in a religious setting. El Alaoui mentions that, “The Gnawa singing, the participants, the witches, and the mother’s dance and trance were all documented without acting.” Overcome with guilt and grief from the consequences of her actions, the mother’s participation in the Gnawa ceremony to summon Aicha Kandicha sees her seeking to confront her sorrow through the mystical ritual, and to heal the broken bond with her daughter. It is an expression that is loud and guttural, grief laid bare, and rage uninhibited.
In Sanaa El Alaoui’s Aicha, a grotesque violation sends the spirit of a young girl frantic, fragmenting time and space, and what is left is a story experienced out of sequence. The metaphysics of this story go beyond the temporal displacement; they remind us of the supernatural elements around us. The film’s use of multiple mediums, especially animation, helps convey the young girl’s death through a powerful, fragmented montage. It is noteworthy how Tomek Popakul and Kasumi Ozeki manage to depict this violation and capture the emotional intensity of the event without explicitly showing it, giving depth to such a sensitive topic. Just before the attack, the girl encounters a woman in black, dressed in Muslim garb. Her energy is both enigmatic and menacing, with a voice-over reflecting on her silent, otherworldly presence. This figure evokes the spirit of a banshee or La Llorona. However, the woman’s burka, a clear religious symbol, adds another layer to the story, blending spirituality with tradition. This juxtaposition challenges the young girl’s belief that she is rebelling against religious oppression, further complicating the themes of sacredness and rebellion.
“We all need to burn incense to be born again.”
El Alaoui’s short film is an emotional and entrancing study into the experiences of violence and abuse that Moroccan women face, and how society continues to fail them where laws are concerned. In portraying a young woman’s life in fragments, we get to stand in her shoes and rummage through the liminal space, trying to understand how we got here, how we hope to move from it, and what lies ahead.
This review was originally published on the Talent Press website as part of the Talent Press programme, an initiative of Talents Durban in collaboration with the Durban FilmMart Institute and FIPRESCI.
Ahmad Alive is a harrowing personal account of a nation's resilience under constant fire.
Ahmad Ghunaim’s documentary short is an incredibly searing and essential contribution to the growing zeitgeist of films and commentary coming out of Palestine in the wake of the world’s renewed attention to the region following October 7th, 2023. Although Palestinians have lived under Israeli occupation for over half a century, this period marked an alarming intensification of violence, with abductions and mass killings carried out under the guise of what mainstream media has termed the Hamas-Israeli conflict. Through his lens, Ghunaim beckons the viewers to witness these realities firsthand and confront them for what they are: acts of genocide.
Ahmad Alive, co-produced by Yusuf Omar and Aurelia Driver of Seen.TV, opens up with a brief historical overview, offering context for how its subject, Ahmad Ghunaim, arrived at the point we meet him in the documentary. Through voice-overs and past footage from his socials, Ghunaim reflects on his aspirations of becoming a travel vlogger—someone who would showcase Gaza’s beauty to the world and inspire Palestinians to explore beyond its borders. However, these dreams were stifled by severe travel restrictions. Instead, he decided to turn his camera inward, documenting the hidden gems of Gaza despite the constant weight of oppression—this became a quiet act of resistance and a testament to the resilience of not only a people but of ambitions constantly stifled by struggle.
In an interview with EWN, Ghunaim shared that he ‘never intended to be a war correspondent,’ but felt compelled to show the world the reality in Gaza after October 7th. It was after his house was bombed and his community uprooted through numerous Israeli attacks that Ghunaim sought to shift his gaze and take up a more journalistic approach to bear witness to the horrors unfolding around him. This coincided with the ban on foreign journalism and broadcasting.
The significance of Ghunaim and Omar’s use of mobile journalism cannot be overstated. It raises profound questions about the role of the individual, and the artist, in documenting their own annihilation. What does it mean to step back from experiencing trauma in real time to record it and raise awareness? To take on the burden of archiving an atrocious history, of bearing witness to the horror with honesty and intention? From what is filmed to what is left on the cutting room floor during editing, every decision becomes a moral one.
By preserving the raw integrity of Ghunaim’s footage, including the uneasy visual tension created by the mismatch between a phone’s vertical frame and a cinema screen’s horizontal format, the film invites viewers to feel the physical and psychological confines of life in Gaza. That stylistic discomfort becomes a metaphor: the letterboxed frame mirrors the claustrophobia of war, the darkness engulfing us from all sides, and yet within it, a sliver of light, a story, survives. The people of Gaza persist.
Ahmad Alive, in portraying a nation’s resistance amidst horror, also highlights the dangers faced by filmmakers and journalists in the region. While foreign media were banned, the mass assassination of local reporters became rampant. Ghunaim accounts for the time he received news of Ayat Al-Khadour’s death. Shortly after she posted a video detailing how Israel’s aircraft were using internationally banned phosphorus bombs in residential areas in Gaza, the freelance journalist and podcaster was killed during a targeted raid in her family’s home. Throughout this segment, seeing the sombre mood elevating from Ghunaim’s grief and despondency, I wondered: Is Ahmad alive right now? For a viewer who was previously unaware of Ahmad Ghunaim before the documentary, such questions arise, considering the culture Israel has of killing Palestinian journalists and media personnel. It was also exacerbated by the young correspondent’s growing health issues.
It is here that South Africa’s status as an ally to Palestine is raised. Through footage from news outlets, the documentary reminds us of the country’s bold stand to accuse Israel of war crimes like apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing at the International Court of Justice. Ghunaim returns to the camera, directly speaking about South Africa’s bravery to do what the rest of the world has failed to, and expresses his desire to go there.
Selected for the 27th edition of the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival that took place earlier this year in Johannesburg and Cape Town, the Seen.TV documentary added significantly to the programme’s core themes that called for films that ‘speak, stir, and stand tall.’ Ahmad Ghunaim and Yusuf Omar’s Palestinian-South African co-production echoes both countries’ experiences with apartheid and the need to amplify the voices of artists shedding light on these atrocities.
At the end of the film, Ahmad Ghunaim was able to escape Israeli-occupied Gaza through the Egyptian border, eventually finding refuge in South Africa. The emotional weight of having to leave the land that shaped him—and the responsibility of carrying his people’s story—permeates this final part. When we see him again on screen, it is easy to notice the change in visual language and storytelling devices. He is no longer behind the camera per se, but seated in front of it, his speech reminiscent of the voice-overs from the beginning of the film to illustrate that they were recorded afterwards, when he had already escaped.
This creative decision is one I found to be powerful. The shift in framing and color grading shows a transformation—not just in Ahmad’s circumstances, but in his role. Where he was once the observer and documentarian, holding the camera like a lifeline and a witness, here he is now the subject, offering a reflection rather than capturing it. The difference between his mobile-shot, on-the-ground footage and this composed, reflective moment highlights the emotional and psychological distance between surviving and remembering. This is how storytelling itself evolves in exile—from a means of survival to an act of healing and resistance.
This review was originally published on the Talent Press website and Modern Times Review as part of the Talent Press programme, an initiative of Talents Durban in collaboration with the Durban FilmMart Institute and FIPRESCI.
