Chance Encounters

Every year a young girl sees her mother crying on her birthday. When her mother turned fifteen, her world was turned upside down when her father was chased and shot by the South African security police for reasons that remain mysterious until today. This story feeds the imagination of the child who constantly re-imagines the story of the murder of her grandfather in the form of scenes from a film.

Director’s statement
This film is inspired by my childhood in South Africa at a time when many people were preparing for a civil war. It was during this time of fear that I fell in love with cinema and found an escape by observing the absurdities around me as if they were like scenes in a film. When my mother shared her story about how she lost her father as a child, I started to imagine myself as a film director telling his story. It was then that I knew that I had found a vocation in cinema.
Even though there is sadness and mystery surrounding the mother’s grief and loss, the tone of the film will be mischievous and comical at times to explore the perspective of a young girl observing her strange reality with a certain distance. Her empathy towards her mother’s tragedy inspires a series of imagined sequences following the logic of her thoughts and her discovery of the creative process