"I remember the forbidden back yard living quarters into which I often transgressed. My secret journey from our tiled and odourless kitchen into the enfolding smell of suurpap, lifebouy soap and bodies contained in that room".

My African Mother examines the relationship between white South Africans and their nannys through personal narrative, interviews with children and their nannys, as well as extraordinary home movie footage from the 1960s and 70s. My African Mother is an eloquent testimony to the relationships that developed between young whites and their "other mothers" and the black children left behind, motherless, in the surrounding peri-urban townships and far flung "homelands".


SA 1999 26min Video
Dir: Cathy Winter



FESTIVALS / AWARDS / SCREENINGS

2000 | South African National Television Awards
* AVANTI at AVANTI Awards

2000 | Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival | CAPE TOWN, South Africa | www.encounters.co.za
* Selection