Jyoti Mistry

Elelwani is a young university-educated woman who has been brought up in an environment steeped in tradition. Her parents have promised her hand in marriage to the Vendaking and, as a dutiful daughter, she wants to obey their wishes. But in order to fulfil her promise, Elelwani must abandon her dreams of travel, further education and – most importantly – her commitment to her one true love.

Three films by Jyoti Mistry – When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Black Man (2017), Cause of Death (2020), and Loving In Between (2023).

Between birth and death, is the power to love and live. Political rules, religious orders, social norms and cultural taboos control who we love and how we love. The right to love, is controlled and regulated by how we live. But the erotic has the power to emancipate. With spoken word and archive sources, love is unboxed from categories in queer expression and a celebration of eros as the power to change our attitudes to life and to allow others to live their lives without judgment or prejudice.

A double-screen work on violence and freedom. On one screen the ‘alphabet of violence’. The second screen's function is to evoke potential, possibility, aspirations and ambitions of a future where the value of the black man in society is revitalised through a lexicon of freedom; he runs towards his freedom.

This provocative short film explores women's power, force and passion through an enigmatic series of images, erotic performances and tableaux vivant. Beautifully shot, it references as well as recreates a trajectory of images of women throughout history. Moving from the slow, thoughtful effect of allegorical painting to the fast paced impact of MTV, Yoni plays with the structures of stylization, narrative and montage. There is a poetic and lyrical feel to this film's investigation of representing the feminine and it manages to explore both the chains that bind as well as the threads that connect women --across time, culture and history.

Investigating the gruesome murder of a cabinet minister's daughter, a special investigator and a local police detective find themselves knee-deep in political corruption and conspiracy, in this sizzling noir thriller set in post-apartheid South Africa.

Through archival film footage, animation and spoken word poetry an experience of structural violence against women is exposed.