Zikethiwe Ngcobo

A young woman’s quest for love, who gets caught up in the modern and traditional ideas for romance. The movie further explores different types of relationships and how we ultimately navigate love, sex, and relationships.

Unemployment, poverty, disease, and domestic violence are commonplace in the township of Alexandra in Johannesburg. For young mothers, who often have to raise their children alone, survival is a constant struggle, and they barely have time for themselves and their babies. Yet the first 1001 days after conception are crucial to a child's development.

Filmed over six years, Mother City follows the David versus Goliath battle as activists and domestic workers take on property power and politics in Cape Town – a city still disfigured by spatial apartheid 30 years into democracy. The story begins when the government sells a school, meant for affordable housing, to a private developer. Set against the backdrop of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, this intimate and at times funny narrative documentary charts Nkosikhona (Face) Swartbooi leading a defiant war against government and property developers – on the streets, in the supreme court and in parliament.

A daughter uncovers her mother's radical journey from rural South Africa to exile, and how storytelling can become a weapon of resistance and a tool of healing.