Nonhlanhla Dlamini
Development support
Two young women publicly announce their love for each other in Swaziland. The media, the churches and ordinary people vilify the couple because of their sexuality. Then less than six months later, the younger of the two is found murdered in a grave yard. Her fiancée is away in neighbouring South Africa, but when she returns to the country before New Year’s Eve 2010, she is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover.
This film follows her mother who publicly vilified her daughter after the announcement as she grapples to reconcile motherly love for a daughter who could face a death penalty with her own intense homophobia and deep religious convictions and contradictions.
Long Synopsis
It began with a surprising newspaper headline, declaring, Swazi Lesbians say I do.
In a society where homosexuality is not seen as a 'natural sexual orientation' but rather as a sexual defiance campaign of rebels challenging and disrupting the nuclear family and subsequent traditional society built along non compromising gender roles, two Swazi females announce their plans to marry in August 2009.
The media, the churches and ordinary people vilify the couple because of their “unusual sexual activities”. Then less than six months later, the younger of the two is found murdered in a grave yard. Her fiancée is away in neighbouring South Africa, but when she returns to Swaziland before New Year’s Eve 2010, she is arrested and charged with the murder of her partner.
The film is not so much about homosexuality or even about homophobia as about a woman who had been thrown to the fringes of society being suddenly thrust into an unexpected transition when events beyond her control are created first by the announcement of her daughters marriage to a woman and subsequently by the court trial when her daughter is accused of murdering that same female partner.
The film follows her through the experience of her daughters’ imprisonment and court case in the city- far from the one room; she shares in the rural outskirts, with her two grandchildren.