“I Was Blind to My Own Blackness by Apartheid’s Design”: Milisuthando Bongela on Milisuthando

The self-described South African “writer, editor, cultural worker and artist” — and now debut feature filmmaker — Milisuthando Bongela grew up under apartheid. Yet she also didn’t, at least not within the straightforward narrative of having witnessed a racist colonial regime heroically toppled by Black liberator Nelson Mandela. Indeed, the young Bongela wasn’t aware of her fellow Black countrymen’s struggle in cities like Soweto. But neither were most of the residents of The Transkei, an unrecognized Black independent region established by the oppressors to conjure the illusion that being “separate but equal” not only worked, but could provide Black people with a wonderfully blissful life. The problem was that for Bongela — and especially for folks like her grandmother, who expresses disdain for Mandela and his seemingly crazy race-mixing ideas — it actually did. So how does one process such a complicated legacy, one which includes the experience of being thrust into a sudden world of whiteness you never even knew existed? If you’re a thrilling new cinematic talent like Bongela, you make a documentary called Milisuthando, a wildly ambitious and deeply poetic five-part essay film that manages to be every bit as intimate and vulnerable as it is bold and historically sweeping. Filmmaker reached out to the multi-hyphenate director — who actually began her career in the fashion industry — a few days prior to Milisuthando’s World Cinema Documentary Competition premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.