A world apart

Set in Johannesburg in 1963, the film is a convincing, impeccably constructed indictment of apartheid, based on a semiautobiographical screenplay by Shawn Slovo. 13-year-old Molly’s world is turned upside down when her father, an ANC official, departs in the middle of the night not to return, leaving his journalist wife both to take care of Molly and her two younger sisters and to continue the political struggle. Much to Molly's confusion, involvement with the movement makes her mother a distracted, inattentive one - distant because she fears she cannot trust her daughter with life-and-death secrets. The film is driven by the tension between Molly's resentment at what she perceives as her mother's neglect of the family, and her gradual acknowledgment of the importance of the political imperatives by which her mother is compelled.
Menges has chosen to explore apartheid primarily through the eyes of whites. The extraordinarily moving work of Barbara Hershey, Jodhi May, and Linda Mvusi garnered a shared Best Actress award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.