This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

In her village in Lesotho, widow Mantoa (80) is preparing for the end by arranging her own funeral and bidding farewell to worldly affairs. Suddenly, it is announced that her close-knit community will have to make way for the construction of a reservoir. Everyone will have to move to the cities, leaving their homes, fields, cemetery, lives and traditions behind. While most are overwhelmed by this bizarre news, it rekindles Mantoa’s lust for life. She has no intention of giving up everything in the name of ‘progress’.

For this melancholy modern fairy tale, filmmaker and visual artist Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese adapted the story of his own grandmother and of many inhabitants of rural parts of Lesotho facing the same problems. Many people are being forced to leave their homes in beautiful Lesotho. What does such abrupt uprooting do to the social relations, centuries-old traditions and spiritual identity of these people?