This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

Winner of a prize for ‘visionary filmmaking’ at the Sundance Film Festival, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s Lesotho-set drama stars the indelibly superb Mary Twala Mhlongo as an 80-year-old widow, grieving for the loss of her son (and her last remaining relative), who decides to take action against a dam project that threatens to eradicate her home village. Mosese crafts a powerful and immersive tale, but it is Mhlongo—who died shortly after the film premiered—who gives the film its heart and soul. Her resistance to forces that seem insurmountable is a life-affirming example for a world in great need of such things.

‘This is an extraordinary and otherworldly feature film… It’s a film about resistance and resilience, but director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is coolly unsentimental and realistic about the inevitable march of capitalism and construction. Weaving in ideas around displacement, collective identity and history, this film takes on almost mythic qualities.’—Cath Clarke, The Guardian