South Africa / 2002 / 29mins / Drama / English

In 1960, Edward Simelane won a prize for his remarkable sculpture. He did not know that the contest was strictly for whites. While the committee decided to give him the award, it created a nation-wide outcry. An Afrikaaner man, who is moved by the Simelane's work, invites him to have a drink, but is suddenly afraid to take him inside his flat. The film shows how class differences and racial prejudice can prevent us reaching, touching, and connecting with each other. This film was adapted for the screen from the Alan Paton story written in 1963 and winner of the special prize for short film at FESPACO. It was also screened at Cannes, the 1st Commonwealth Film Festival, and Zanzibar.

Zola Maseko

Swazi film director and screenwriter Zola Maseko was born in exile in 1967. Educated in Swaziland and Tanzania, he joined Umkhonto We Sizwe, the armed sector of the African National Congress, in 1987. After moving to the United Kingdom, he graduated from the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield in 1994. Maseko’s first film was the documentary Dear Sunshine, released in 1992. He fought apartheid in several countries. He moved to South Africa in 1994 and wrote The Foreigner, a short fiction film about xenophobia in this country. In 1998 Zola Maseko directed The Life and Times of Sara Baartman. Other short films by Maseko include Children of the Revolution (2002), A Drink in the Passage (2002) and The Return of Sara Baartman (2003). The latter won the Special Jury Award at FESPACO. His first feature film was Drum, released in 2004. Set in 1950s Johannesburg, it tells of the magazine of the same name and specifically focuses on Henry Nxumalo, a journalist fighting apartheid. The film received the top prize at FESPACO, the Golden Stallion of Yennenga. The filmmaker is currently working on the television series Homecoming, following the adventures of three MK fighters trying to fit in with the rest of South Africa and also working on Liverpool Leopard, which is to be his second feature film. Learn More