South Africa / 2022 / 95mins / Documentary / English, SiSwati, isiZulu, SeSotho, isiXhosa, XiTsonga

When an opinionated filmmaker agrees to marry her long-term boyfriend, she must decide if she will break with tradition and reject "lobola," a Bantu cultural practice that involves the prospective groom paying a "bride price" to the family of the bride-to-be, or not.

Sihle Hlophe

Sihle Hlophe is a multi award-winning director/scriptwriter and a multi-degree earner. She is the founder and executive producer of Passion Seed Communications, a film-driven social enterprise. Over the last 14 years, her work has been recognised with a number of accolades including two African Movie Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary. Hlophe is an alumni of the IDFAcademy (the Netherlands), the North-South-South Student Exchange Program (Finland) and the Hot Docs Blue Ice Group Story Lab (Canada).

She is the producer and director of the feature-length documentary, Lobola, A Bride’s True Price?, winner of the Most Outstanding Documentary Project award at the Durban Film Mart (2017). Hlophe directed, Lindela Under Lockdown(2020), winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Cameroon International Film Festival and the Best Documentary Short Award at the South African Film & Television Awards (SAFTAs). In 2021, Hlophe directed and produced Celebrating Herstory Through Song; in 2022. Hlophe has directed two feature-length Showmax Original made-for-TV fiction films, Pearls Of Wisdom and Expiry Date. Hlophe is also the director of African Dreams(2021), a SAFTA-winning 13-part mocku-series that was broadcast on SABC 1.

Hlophe is the co-producer of Sadla(2020), a narrative short film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (USA). Hlophe has written and directed two award-winning narrative short films, As I Am(2014) and Nomfundo (2017), that have been screened at over 40 film festivals around the world. Between 2012 and 2017, she worked as a scriptwriter and storyliner on award winning TV shows such as Lockdown, Scandal, Mutual Friends and Broken Vows. She has also worked as a part-time Lecturer at AFDA (2016) and the University of Johannesburg (2018/19). Learn More