Synopsis
Mpiyakhe (David Wurawa) has a highly successful life in Johannesburg, is in business partnership with his wife, Rachel’s cousin and has just clinched yet another business deal. A far cry from his roots as a young herds boy in rural Zululand. Then he receives that fateful call from his childhood friend Sizwe (Frank Malaba) his estranged father Nondaba is dying and he is compelled to return to his roots, guilty having not visited his father for several years. He has to confess to his wife Rachel that his father, unbeknown to her, has been alive all these years, and worse still he has to confront the demons of his past.
In Zululand Sizwe greets him, and the contrast between these two is evident, Mpiyakhe is a somewhat arrogant smartly dressed businessman, while Sizwe strives to be smart in his well-worn clothing, and the differences run deeper than that. In the village Mpiyakhe encounters Vusi (Mbulelo Grootboom) hostility from both sides as Zondi believes Vusi is the one who informed on his father to the Police during apartheid leading to his father’s arrest. To further complicate things the resentful Vusi has married Thembi, Sizwe’s sister, who had been Mpiyakhe’s childhood sweetheart. (but she chose Vusi, the village chief/induna’s son!)
Mpiyakhe reconciles with his dying and forgiving father, a wise man who acts like a mirror for Mpiyakhe allowing him to now see a clear reflection of himself, his values, his identity, his long forgotten cultural heritage.
Mpiyakhe encounters the embittered and homeless Johan (Mark Mulder) dying from cancer. Johan struggles to see from a clear perspective, fighting inner despair. Mpiyakhe recognises Johan as one of the policeman in charge along with die hard racist Van Zyl (Graham Clarke) who arrested his father all those years ago, the first assault on the young Mpiyakhe’s psyche. Here Mpiyakhe has two choices, bitterness and rage, or reconciliation and forgiveness.
The story escalates and Mpiyakhe, Vusi, Sizwe, and Johan must make life changing decisions as they are forced by circumstance to “look in the mirror” and make those choices, for better, or for worse.