Mpume Mthombeni

South Africa, Free State region, isolated stronghold to the Afrikaans white ethnic minority culture. In this conservative farming territory obsessed with strength and masculinity, Janno is different, secretive, emotionally frail. One day his mother, fiercely religious, brings home Pieter, a hardened street orphan she wants to save, and asks Janno to make this stranger into his brother. The two boys start a fight for power, heritage and parental love.

In South Africa, many cultures revere the ocean as the realm in which their ancestor's dwell. When a child asks their teacher Nowandle, "How do the ancestors get into the sea?", a mystical adventure unfolds in Nowandle's loving narration against an African operatic choral score.