Milisuthando
Directed by Milisuthando Bongela
Set in past, present, and future South Africa — an invitation into a poetic, memory-driven exploration of love, intimacy, race, and belonging by the filmmaker, who grew up during apartheid but didn't know it was happening until it was over.
A South African-Colombian Co-Production. In Association with Multitude Films.
2023 / 128 MINUTES
About
the Team
Milisuthando Bongela — Writer, Director, and Producer
Milisuthando (b.1985, South Africa) is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, cultural worker and artist. Her career began in the fashion industry but the last 16 years have seen her traverse the worlds of music, art, media and film - continually turning towards indigenous knowledge systems. She was Arts Editor for the Mail & Guardian's Friday section and was host and co-producer of the podcast Umoya: On African Spirituality with Dr. Athambile Masola. Her first film, a personal essay documentary titled MILISUTHANDO had its in competition world premier at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and selected for MoMA’s New Directors / New Films programme 2023 before opening the 2023 Encounters Documentary Film Festival. It was nominated and won awards for its groundbreaking form, subject matter and approach to personal filmmaking.
She is an inaugural fellow of the 2020 Adobe Women at Sundance Fellowship and is currently working on her second film with collaborator Hankyeol Lee — an experimental silent film commissioned by Neo Muyanga for William Kentridge’s Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg. She recently moved to New York from Johannesburg.
Marion Issacs — Producer
Marion (b.1981, South Africa) is a producer, curator, editor and writer-researcher with a love of storytelling, which she’s explored through her work in documentary film and museum curation. Her varied career has afforded her a sustained focus on questions of identity, race and gender, and the often eccentric dimensions of South African life in a radically global context. Her film repertoire includes Mandela and Me (2012), They Sacrificed for Our Freedom (EP, 2014), and her first feature documentary, The President Needs More Time (dir. Oliver Hermanus). Her second feature, Milisuthando (dir. Milisuthando Bongela), will premiere at Sundance 2023. Her museum work includes the Matola Interpretive Centre (Moz), the OR Tambo Narrative Centre (SA) and film work for Freedom Park (SA). She holds a Masters in African Studies (Oxford, UK) and she’s an alumna of the 2019 Sundance Institute Producers Summit and the 2022 Realness Creative Producers Indaba.
Hankyeol Lee — Cinematographer, Editor & Associate Producer
Hankyeol (b.1993, South Korea) is a filmmaker and photographer who is fascinated by topics of language and fractured identity. Her work as a director, cinematographer and editor is founded on the bedrock of collaboration and skillshare, which is a strong element of her approach to filmmaking. Her filmography includes BROR, a short documentary she directed about two 80-year old brothers living together in the idyllic town of Porkkala, Finland. She was the cinematographer and editor of I WANT TO SEE FOR MYSELF a short documentary about the legacy of Tennis hero, Arthur Ashe and the tennis centre he erected in Soweto, South Africa. She is a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, and has also lectured cinematography at the Wits School of Film and TV.
Sonia Barrera — Co-Producer
Sonia is a Colombian film and TV producer having studied Film, Photography and Social Communication. She is executive producer of LA JAURÍA, winner of the Grand Prix of La Semaine de la Critique of Festival de Cannes 2022. She is also the general producer of the feature films THE RED TREE, selected in Black Nights Film Festival Tallinn, Estonia; the Cartagena International Film festival and the Seattle International Film Festival, among others. She produced the documentary BETWEEN FIRE AND WATER, which premiered at IDFA in 2020, the documentary series LIKE LOVING CATS and the feature THROUGH THE SCREEN, a film that commemorates 100 years of Colombian Cinema. As a field producer, she has worked on the feature films THE WIND JOURNEYS (Cannes Film Festival 2009), KEYLA (Official selection at the Warsaw Film Festival 2017), KAIRÓS and NEONATAL (Official Selection at the Lima Film Festival and the Chicago Latino Film Festival). She won the India Catalina prize for the production of the Colombian TV series ASÍ SOMOS in 2018.
Viviana Gómez Echeverry — Co-Producer
Viviana is a director, producer and cinematographer. She studied Social Communication at the Javeriana University in Colombia and in Spain, she specialised in cinematography and later acquired a master’s degree in Scriptwriting. She is an alumni of Chicken & Egg Pictures, Talents Buenos Aires, Tribeca Film Institute and the Colombian Film Fund. Viviana wrote, directed and produced the documentary BETWEEN FIRE AND WATER, which had its world premiere at IDFA and thereafter, selected for Hot Docs. She co-directed Andreas Dalsgaard’s documentary LIFE IS SACRED, in which she was also the cinematographer and which was produced by Final Cut for Real and premiered at CPH:DOX. KEYLA, her first feature, was selected for the Warsaw Film Festival. Viviana is a founding partner and CEO of Viso Producciones and produced the feature film RED THREE, which premiered at the Black Nights Film Festival Tallinn in Estonia and the documentary series LIKE LOVING CATS.
Executive Producers
Jess Devaney
Anya Rous
Charlotte Cook
Brenda Robinson
