Project 10 - Through the Eyes of my Daughter

Filmmaker Zulfah Otto Sallies is intrigued by her 15-year old daughter. Although they were both raised within the same tradition, religion and environment of the historic Bo-Kaap, the Muslim quarter in Cape Town, Muneera is part of the new generation of South Africans raised in a free society. The subject of a film is a teenager’s view of the world and, naturally, the role of the mother comes under the spotlight. When it’s the filmmaker’s daughter being filmed, it becomes a brave exploration – not only of the “15-year-old who sleeps in my house”, but of how Zulfah’s views and career have affected her child: “Your children and family are rarely out of focus, and that is something difficult to convey to children”. We follow Muneera for a year as she comes into her own and explores her options, displaying the characteristics of 15-year-olds across the globe, including an obsession with cellphones. At times she performs for the camera, at others she is embarassed or indifferent to it. We see her insecurities and excitement as she confronts drama, film, and sport with the same determinedly committed and colourful attitude // BELONGING:BELONGING is a young woman’s journey through an identity crisis experienced because she is different. She feels excluded by the people who should embrace her. As a result, she feels disconnected. “I smile, I laugh and I joke,but I don’t really connect with people,” she says.Kethiwe Ngcobo was born to exiles who fled apartheid South Africa in the early 1960s. In 1994, the year that the country became a democracy, her family returned home.But moving back to a homeland Kethiwe had never seen,
except in her imagination as a Utopian paradise, turned out to be a convoluted journey.
She grew up in England, where she felt like an outsider who didn’t fit the model of the “typical” black immigrant – because of being an exile. Her father’s status as a prominent PAC (Pan African Congress) member rather than ANC (African National Congress) was an issue within the community of exiles. And now, in South Africa, Kethiwe is seen as British rather than South African. To add to the conflict, she has struggled to adjust to an extended African family structure and a culture of slaughtering cows, sheep and goats. This leaves her straddling two worlds.