A Small Town Called Descent

After a young Zimbabwean man is murdered gruesomely just over the South African border, three officers of the Scorpions Investigating Unit arrive in the village of Descent. According to the local police commander, the murder is revenge for a sex crime, but the Scorpions soon discover that there is more behind it. In addition, the three men turn out to be less innocent than they try to look.
The debutant South African director Jahmil XT Qubeka sardonically sketches the problems that are the scourge of South Africa. Poverty, violence, xenophobia and widespread corruption have paralysed both democratisation and reconciliation since the apartheid system was abolished 20 years ago. Newsreel footage of the indictments for rape and corruption against President Jacob Zuma lift the story to a national level. Qubeka‘s melancholy about the tragic fate of South Africa can be seen in the grand images and the intense colours with which the film maker records the South African landscape.