AFRICA
Rent the film at
watch.milisuthando.com
or Patreon
Rent the film at
watch.milisuthando.com
or Patreon
US + CANADA
Exclusive Streaming Premiere
The Criterion Channel
October 2025
Exclusive Streaming Premiere
The Criterion Channel
October 2025
Dates: 13 October & 15 October 2025
Venue: Neelsie Cinema
Hosts: Woordfees Film Festival
Cape Town, South Africa
Durban, South Africa
Date: 17 October 2025
Venue: The Chairman
Hosts: Lit Social Club
Gqeberha, South Africa
Date: 30 October 2025
Venue: AFDA Gqeberha
Host: AFDA Gqeberha
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Date: 1 November 2025
Venue: 56 Tambo Arts Centre
Host: CineBa
Date: 22 October 2025
Venue: Cinemateket + The Royal Danish Academy
Host: Heirloom Centre for Art and Archives - Remnants curated by Tawanda Appiah
Nairobi, Kenya
Date: 1 November 2025
Venue: Unseen
Host: Unseen Theatre
Barcelona, Spain
Date: 23 November 2025
Venue: TBC
Host: Build Peace Conference
Connect
Follow the film and join the discussion on Instagram, Tik Tok, Patreon or on Reddit at r/Milisuthando
Email us at molo@milisuthando.com
Promotional posters for Milisuthando, photographs by Hankyeol Lee & Adrian Fortuin, designed by francis burger with Milisuthando Bongela, 2023 & 2025.
About the film
Our story exists on two parallel planes.
the plane of the tangible and the plane of the intangible.
myth and fact are husband and wife.
tale and memory, siblings.
and history, the bed they can't wake up from.
we begin and end in an embrace with The Ancestors.
and in between, traverse the liminal spaces
between sky and ground
being and race
other and self
linear and nonlinear time
life and death
Africa and the west.
this is a portrait of me and South Africa,
growing up together
in the aftermath of apartheid
and unfolds over 5 acts and
3 universes spanning 3 decades.
at times using the medium of cinema as a tool to perform ritual.
driven by my narrative voice,
Honed in the hearth of uBuntu,
in pursuit of the anatomy of race in this place,
with a view of my own fragile personhood,
the film is concerned with the notion that:
something was done, to all of us.
and meditates on difficult questions about power, intimacy, fear, refusal, duty, repair and love.
this pursuit is at times observational,
at times vérité, traversing
happened-upon environments that take the viewer
into the interiors of the new South Africa,
via the histories that inconveniently bond us
to one another.
Milisuthando Bongela
PRODUCED BY
Marion Isaacs
Milisuthando Bongela
EDITOR & CINEMATOGRAPHER
Hankyeol Lee
MUSIC COMPOSITION
Neo Muyanga
Msaki (Asanda Lusaseni)
CONSULTING EDITORS
Arya Lalloo
Todd Chandler
Viso Producciones:
Sonia Barrera Gutiérrez
Viviana Gómez Echeverry
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS (United States)
Jessica Devaney
Anya Rous
Charlotte Cook
Brenda Robinson
D.D. Wigley
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS (South Africa)
Lesedi Moche
Hankyeol Lee
Cinetic Media
DISTRIBUTED BY
The Cinema Guild
Sinema Films
SOCIAL MEDIA & DIGITAL PRODUCTION
Sinema Films
Angela Ding
Qhayiya Bongela
francis burger
COUNTRIES OF PRODUCTION
South Africa
Colombia
Team
Milisuthando Bongela-Davis (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.
Producer
Marion Isaacs (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.
Marion lives in Johannesburg.
Editor, Cinematographer, and Associate Producer
Hankyeol Lee (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.
Hankyeol lives in Johannesburg.
Associate Producer
Lesedi Oluko Moche is a Johannesburg based creative producer, film festival programmer, and documentary film advisor. The core driving force of her work is rooted in facilitating the creative and storytelling translations of our existence and diverse experiences. With this as her motivation, she has had the remarkable opportunity of traversing the vast expanse of the African continent, contributing to film, television, and festival projects in multiple countries. On a personal level her global upbringing, raised in 5 countries on 4 continents, has influenced her career pursuits and provided a nuanced understanding of culture, identity and the linked pursuits of humans - dignity, safety, belonging, and love.
As a senior television producer, her work and area of expertise is largely in translating complex and dense research into accessible, short and long form, audio-visual content. She produced two seasons of the first ever late-night show hosted by a woman in South Africa, Late Night with Kgomotso as well as three seasons of a young women's panel talk show, Rise Young Women's Talk Show, which was the number 1 talk show in South Africa during its airing.
She has served as Festival Director for The Encounters International Documentary Festival, as the Head Curator for the European Film Festival and as a Documentary programmer for the Durban International Film Festival and Program Consultant and advisor for the Sheffield DocFest. Most recently, she contributed, as story scout, to an upcoming podcast hosted by Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o, produced by Snap Judgment Studios.
Co-Producer
Viviana Gómez Echeverry 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.
Sonia Barrera Gutiérrez 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.
Jess Devaney is a Brooklyn-based producer and Founder & President of Multitude Films. Her latest films include LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER, presented by Participant (Peacock); Emmy-nominated PRAY AWAY, executive produced by Ryan Murphy and Blumhouse (Netflix); Oscar-shortlisted CALL CENTER BLUES (Topic Studios); and APART, the Emmy-winning episode of the series THROUGH OUR EYES (HBO Max). She also produced Sundance Award-winning and IDA-nominated ALWAYS IN SEASON (Independent Lens) and THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED (POV), dubbed “a real-world conspiracy thriller” by Variety. Additional credits include Critics' Choice Documentary Award-nominated SPEED SISTERS (Netflix) and Peabody-nominated ROLL RED ROLL (POV, Netflix), among others. Her films have been programmed at top festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, BlackStar, and Telluride. Jess founded QueerDoc and was a Sundance Institute Documentary Edit and Story Lab fellow, Women at Sundance fellow, and Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab advisor. She received DOC NYC and Topic Studios' inaugural 40 Under 40 Award, Cinereach Producers Award, and Doc10’s inaugural Vanguard Award.
Executive Producer
Anya Rous is a Brooklyn-based Producer and Vice President of Multitude Films. She advises on impact strategy for films produced by Multitude and leads a movement orientation within the company’s producing model where films are drivers of culture change. Her latest films include Netflix Original PRAY AWAY (Telluride, Tribeca 2020) in partnership with Ryan Murphy and Blumhouse; as well as APART, the Emmy-winning episode of the HBO Max series THROUGH OUR EYES, in partnership with Sesame Workshop. She co-executive produced the Oscar-shortlisted CALL CENTER BLUES (SXSW 2020, TOPIC) and CALL HER GANDA (Tribeca 2018, POV) and co-produced Sundance Award-winning and IDA-nominated ALWAYS IN SEASON (Independent Lens 2020) and Livingston Award-winning THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED (Tribeca 2018, POV), which was dubbed “a real-world conspiracy thriller” by Variety.
Anya brings a combined 10 years of experience in funding strategy and impact campaigns for stories that further movements for racial, economic, and gender justice. Anya was a 2019–2020 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, a 2019 Impact Partners Documentary Producing Fellow, a 2020–2021 DOC NYC 40 Under 40 filmmaker, and a 2021 Gotham/Cannes Producers Network Fellow.
Charlotte Cook is a curator, writer, producer and the Co-creator and Executive Producer of Field of Vision. Prior to Field of Vision, she was the Director of Programming at Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival. In London, Charlotte was the Head of Film Programming at The Frontline Club. She has also worked with BBC Storyville, the Channel 4 BritDoc Foundation’s Puma Creative Catalyst Fund and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, where she curated the strand Conflict | Reportage. In addition to her work at Field of Vision, Charlotte is currently a programmer at CPH:DOX.
Executive Producer
Brenda Robinson is an entertainment attorney and producer with extensive experience in the film, television and music industries. Brenda was most recently a financier on the Academy Award-winning documentary ICARUS as well as WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR and STEP. She is an executive producer on numerous projects including the BAFTA-nominated PASSING, directed by Rebecca Hall and produced by Nina Yang Bongiovi and Forest Whitaker; the Emmy-nominated UNITED SKATES, alongside executive producer John Legend; THE GREAT AMERICAN LIE by director Jennifer Siebel Newsom; JUMP SHOT: THE KENNY SAILORS STORY, alongside executive producer Steph Curry; MARIAN ANDERSON: THE WHOLE WORLD IN HER HANDS directed by Rita Coburn for PBS’ AMERICAN MASTERS series; and the upcoming THE EMPIRE OF EBONY, directed by Lisa Cortes and produced by Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams. As a dedicated philanthropist in the arts and entertainment community and advocate on behalf of creative artists, Brenda currently serves as the Board Chair of Film Independent, is on the board of The Representation Project founded by California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and is an advisor to The Redford Center co-founded by Robert Redford and his son James Redford. Brenda is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
© All content Milisuthando Bongela 2025 unless otherwise noted.
Background image by Adrian Fortuin, from the making of the film, 2022.
Background image by Adrian Fortuin, from the making of the film, 2022.
Ibokwe (goat) image created with reference to an image by freepik.
Website designed by francis burger.
Website designed by francis burger.
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