Barakat (2020)

Barakat was South Africa’s official submission for Best International Feature at the 94^th Academy Awards in 2022. This made Amy Jephta (Skemerdans) the fourth female director to be submitted to the Oscars by South Africa, and the first woman of colour. 

Barakat follows Muslim widow Aisha Davids as she tries to bring together her fractured family over Eid-al-Fitr to break the news about her new romance.

Vinette Ebrahim (Skemerdans) won Best Actress at Silwerskerm 2022 as the ageing matriarch, while her four sons, still struggling to come to terms with the death of their father two years earlier, are played by Joey Rasdien (Material), Mortimer Williams (Erfsondes), Keeno-Lee Hector (The Riviera) and Danny Ross (Number 37). The cast also includes SAFTA winners Quanita Adams (Forgiveness), SAFTA nominees Bonnie Mbuli (Noughts & Crosses, Catch a Fire) and Leslie Fong (Isidingo), and June van Merch (Sara se Geheim), who won Best Supporting Actress at Silwerskerm 2022, where Barakat also took Best Screenplay, Best Original Score, Costume Design and Production Design, making it this year’s biggest winner at the festival.

The touching film, which closed Film Africa 2020, has won 13 international awards so far, including Best International Feature at the 2021 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema and Best Narrative Feature at both the Motion Pictures International Film Festival and The Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Festival in 2020, with New Frame praising it as “a layered, intimate and infinitely human story about family that provides a powerful counter-narrative to Muslim stereotypes” and Rapport’s Leon van Nierop celebrating it as “a jewel that shines in its humanity.”