Friends

Fascinating and tempestuous film about three women around whom turbulent events take place in South Africa. The film wasshot on location in and around Johannesburg. One of the leading roles is played by Kerrie Fox, the New Zealand actress from Jane Campion’s An Angel at my Table.Thoko is a black teacher, Sophie (Kerrie Fox) a white activist and Aninka an Afrikaans archaeologist. The three women think they know each other, however different their spirit, culture and language. But they don’t know each other well enough. Protagonist Sophie is a librarian during the day and an activist at night. She became politically aware in the turbulent eighties and her political challenges are just as extreme as the prejudices she comes across in her surroundings. Buildings are blown up and people die. Her life is torn apart, just like the dream of intimacy that she shares with her two best friends. Discord emerges between the women and blinds them. Sophie gives herself up to the police, Thoko pulls out and Aninka reflects on her work and her relationship with the world. Will the women every be friends again.David Stratton in Variety: ‘The tense, divided realities of life in contemporary South Africa are vividly brought to the screen in Friends.’